Brandon Prust can forget about ever getting back on Celebrity Row to watch his beloved Knicks play at the Garden.
Maybe the one-time popular Ranger, who won the club’s 2010-11 Steven McDonald Extra Effort Award as voted by the fans, can buy a ticket for one of the bridges.
He’s got the cash, we know that, enriched as he was by the four-year, $10 million free-agent contract he signed with the Canadiens in July 2012 that convinced him to bring his heart and his edge and his intangibles north from New York.
But Prust’s impact on Montreal’s 3-2 overtime victory over the Rangers in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference finals at the Garden on Thursday was as tangible as the decidedly late blow from the blind side that caught Derek Stepan on the jaw just 2:55 into the first period and sent the center to the deck.
Even though the Blueshirts stormed through the first period with a 1-0 lead, a 14-4 advantage in shots and a 25-12 edge in attempts, Prust had taken it upon himself to demonstrate the Canadiens would not simply be spectators to a Rangers Eastern Conference championship coronation.
Somehow, Prust escaped without a penalty. Heaven only knows. The winger is not a dirty player, we know that from his time here. He is a hard one, and an honest one, but as the NHL Department of Player Safety reviews the open ice hit on Friday as it must, the people running the show will note that Prust has a playoff history he earned as a Ranger, suspended as he was for one game — Game 4 of the 2012 Eastern finals against the Devils for an elbow to the head of New Jersey defenseman Anton Volchenkov.
Stepan, who missed a couple of shifts but returned to the fray after having his head examined, left no doubt after the match he believes the league should enact supplementary discipline against his one-time teammate.
“It doesn’t matter [who it was]; it’s a bad hit,” Stepan said after the OT that ended in stunningly quick fashion when a rebound bounced in off Alex Galchenyuk at 1:12. “I certainly hope the league will look at it.
“I never saw [Prust]. I got the puck and I moved it. I even got some strides in,” Stepan said. “I never saw him.
“It might have been with his shoulder, but he made contact with my face. The main focus is my head.”
The Rangers didn’t lose this game and with it an opportunity for a quick KO of the Canadiens because of this illegal hit.
They lost it because they just couldn’t bury a multitude of chances around the net against Montreal’s rookie goaltender Dustin Tokarski. Maybe they didn’t quite bear down enough, or maybe Tokarski was just that nimble. They lost it because they gave up way too much ice through the neutral zone to the speedy Canadiens and backed in on Henrik Lundqvist way too often.
And if the Blueshirts lost it on a bad bounce, they had tied it with 28.1 seconds remaining in regulation on a good bounce when Chris Kreider’s deflection of Dan Girardi’s right-corner feed banked in off Canadien defenseman Alexei Emelin’s skate.
“There’s not that much to dissect right now,” Martin St. Louis said. “We played well, we had a lot of chances, they talked about throwing the puck on net from everywhere and they did.
“Of course we had an opportunity tonight but we also have an opportunity on Sunday to go ahead 3-1. That’s what we have to look forward to, not look behind.”
The first two games in Montreal were marked by an absence of animosity even if the Canadiens — led by Prust — attempted to manufacture a phony controversy by charging that Kreider was somehow responsible for sliding skates-first into Carey Price when he was clipped from behind on a breakaway by Emelin.
It was Prust who, a day later, came up with the “accidentally on purpose” theme that Michel Therrien carried like a banner into Game 2, with language escalating by the hour.
There was nothing phony about Prust’s hit on Stepan. Maybe this was a purposeful accident committed by Prust, who chose not to make himself available for questions after the match. If the league comes calling, Prust will have to explain himself.
Dan Carcillo was called for charging Prust in an act of some retribution at 5:51, following which Derek Dorsett and Prust dropped the gloves. Carcillo hovered. Linesman Scott Driscoll guided Carcillo toward the penalty box. The Rangers’ winger then either elbowed or grazed the linesman with a gloved punch, earning a game misconduct, and perhaps a suspension.
Whistle-to-whistle no longer quite applied.
“He can’t do that, obviously what he did there, but we’ll let the league handle that,” coach Alain Vigneault said of Carcillo. “I believe if a penalty had been called on Prust, it probably wouldn’t have happened, but there’s nothing we can do about that.
“I don’t think Dan deserved to get a [charging] penalty on that and Dorsett obviously felt they went after one of our top players and wanted to do something about that.”
It was Prust who went after Stepan. It was Prust who ignited this series. And it is Prust who will now have to buy his way into the Garden if he wants to watch the Knicks.