The previous three seasons unfolded as if on a loop, 2013-14 into 2014-15 into 2015-16 without much of a pause between them. When the Rangers were playing Game 74 last March, it felt like Game 238.
Pretty much the same guys, the same team, the same narrative, the same expectations that had been in place since Alain Vigneault replaced John Tortorella behind the bench in the summer of 2013.
And it all — like many of the players — had become tired in the wake of playoff defeats in the 2014 Stanley Cup final, the 2015 conference final, and then, finally, the crash-and-burn in the 2016 first round.
So general manager Jeff Gorton undertook remodeling work over the summer, and though the combination of the cap and contracts limited his dramatic moves to one — the Derick Brassard for Mika Zibanejad swap — the Rangers returned to camp as a different team.
And with a different mindset.
No longer did the Rangers invoke their previous playoff disappointments. No longer did the Rangers project ahead to the playoffs. No longer did the Blueshirts pledge to make amends for coming up so painfully short in the tournament. No longer did the Rangers talk as if a June parade up the Canyon of Heroes was their manifest destiny.
No longer were these Rangers either haunted by defeat or burdened by expectations. This was a new group, even if the names at the top such as Henrik Lundqvist, Ryan McDonagh, Dan Girardi, Marc Staal, Derek Stepan and Rick Nash were such familiar ones.
And in shedding expectations, the Rangers have exceeded them wildly as they enter the All-Star break as one of the top five teams in the East, top 10 in the NHL and, as such, one of those clubs that would appear to have at least a puncher’s chance at the grand prize.
“I think the last couple of years we were worn down by expectations,” Nash told The Post prior to Wednesday’s match at the Garden against the Flyers. “We’d go to June or the end of May, we’d just come up short, and then we’d turn right around and start again.
“There was no time off, almost no break, and it did seem like one year just rolled into the next, where you couldn’t differentiate between seasons.”
But you can sure differentiate this one from the one before it and the two preceding 2015-16. Because though none of the big contracts — those belonging to Lundqvist, Nash, Staal and Girardi and Stepan — moved over the summer, the facelift was indeed a dramatic one that has produced a fresh outlook and a new beginning.
Gone from last year’s disastrous five-game rout by the Penguins are Brassard, Eric Staal, Dominic Moore, Viktor Stalberg, Tanner Glass, Keith Yandle, Dan Boyle, Dylan McIlrath (and Rafael Diaz). In their stead are Zibanejad, Michael Grabner, Pavel Buchnevich, Jimmy Vesey, Brandon Pirri, Matt Puempel and Nick Holden.
Speed and more speed; skill and more skill. And youth plus more youth. Indeed, 11 of the Rangers’ 18 skaters for Wednesday’s match are 25 or younger. This isn’t the graying of the Blueshirts. Rather, these are the Yoots of Broadway.
“This season has been a fresh start for everybody,” said Nash, still trying to find his timing and hands in his seventh game back after having been sidelined for nearly four weeks due to a groin issue. “There’s been a different feel from the start.”
Lundqvist has been here since the start of 2005-06, Girardi since the 2006-07 All-Star break and Staal since the start of 2007-08. Stepan arrived for 2010-11, McDonagh midway through that season. Mats Zuccarello showed up first in 2010-11, Chris Kreider made his debut during the 2012 playoffs, Nash has been a Ranger since the summer of 2012 and J.T. Miller started his Ranger career in 2012-13.
So the core has been together for a long, long time. But it is different. There is a different dynamic with this team both on the ice and in the locker room. This season has a distinct feel to it. It is not a measure of the last one. This is not an apology tour for past shortcomings.
“No one has looked back. There’s nothing to make up for,” Nash said. “We just want to keep the train moving.”