MONTREAL — It had all changed, all of it in the wake of the injury to Carey Price that has sidelined the Canadiens’ world-class, gold-medal-winning, franchise goaltender for the remainder of the Eastern finals.
Suddenly, it was dramatically different. Suddenly, and for the first time since the first pucks were dropped in training camps across the continent back in September, the Rangers were overwhelming favorites to come out of the East.
Yes, that’s right: the Rangers.
Except it was not different at all for these Blueshirts, who seem entirely nonplussed by all the commotion and whose tunnel vision was and is 20-20 just as it has been through this entire tournament.
It had not changed for the Rangers, who head home for Thursday’s Game 3 at the Garden with a 2-0 lead in this series following Monday night’s 3-1 Game 2 victory, in which Henrik Lundqvist’s brilliance proved a calm port in the frenzied storm unleashed by the Habs pretty much from start to finish.
Shots: 41-30, Canadiens, including 19 in the third period. Shot attempts: 80-44, including 32 over the final 20 minutes. Priceless.
“You could give him that stupid hat every game,” Brian Boyle, with no intention of blaspheming that Broadway fedora, said of Lundqvist. “If you’re talking about things not changing, he’s the first person to look at.”
Boyle had pulled off his skates. Blood dotted the pinky toe of his left foot. That’s what you get — well, not you and certainly not I — from getting in front of a shot by P.K. Subban, who recorded an ungodly 18 attempts in 29:40, nine of which hit net, three of which were blocked.
“It’s bleeding!” Boyle exclaimed. “That is sick.”
Before the game, it was all about Price, injured when Chris Kreider crashed into him at 3:15 of the second period of Game 1. It was all about Price, that is, when it wasn’t about all about Kreider, whom the Canadiens and coach Michel Therrien painted as a menace to the society of goaltenders around the world.
Let’s make it clear, to borrow the language used by Lundqvist following the morning skate: There was nothing Kreider, faster than a speeding bullet and more powerful than a locomotive, could have done to avoid skidding into Price after he was clipped on the right skate on his sprint to the net by a hopelessly beaten Alexei Emelin.
The Montreal fans booed Kreider every time he touched the puck. That included the shift late in the first on which he sent a three-on-two feed across to Rick Nash — goal-scorer Rick Nash, to you — who buried it for a 2-1 lead at 18:58.
“I thought it was hilarious,” Kreider told The Post when asked his reaction to the hubbub. “To tell you the truth, it helped me get up for the game.
“It lit a fire under my ass that I don’t think is going away anytime soon.”
Who was that masked man in the Montreal net? It was 24-year-old Dustin Tokarski, who made his NHL playoff debut accompanied by a pedigree of championships earned in the Memorial Cup, World Junior Tournament and the AHL. He was fine; blameless on the three against.
Honestly, it only mattered that Lundqvist was in the net at the other end; Lundqvist, who for so much of the first and third periods did indeed seem like The Lone Ranger.
“You have to go out and earn it every game. The first two here, I think we played well for the most part,” The King said. “I had to make a couple of saves here and there, but as a group we played really well.
“I don’t really think about what’s in their head [or] what is their approach. I don’t really care. I just try to focus on what I have to do, really.”
The Rangers mind their own business and nobody else’s. It has become a hallmark of this team.
“That’s not something that just comes, you’ve got to work on it, and we do,” Boyle said. “Our leadership in here sets a great example for us.
“We didn’t focus on who was playing in goal for them. We didn’t expect it to be any easier just because of the change. We had a write-up from the coaches before the series of what we needed to do to beat Montreal, and that stayed the same whether Price was in net or not.”
The Rangers have won five straight playoff games for the first time in 20 years, since the 1994 parade began with seven straight out of the gate. The Finals are two victories away.
“We’ve earned that,” Boyle said. “We’ve worked really hard to get where we are. But now it’s about Thursday and nothing else. It’s about that tunnel vision.”
It is about one at a time for the overwhelming favorites to come out of the East and play for the Stanley Cup.
The Rangers.
Tell me nothing has changed.