PHILADELPHIA — It was Tuesday morning on the ice at Wells Fargo Center, and Brad Richards sidled up on one knee next to Dan Carcillo.
Unbeknownst to those watching, Richards was aware the tough-guy forward was about to play his first game of the postseason, as Game 3 of the Rangers’ first-round series against the Flyers was hours away. The conversation wasn’t too complex, Richards telling Carcillo to keep things simple, to keep things straight ahead.
“I’ll be honest, from what I heard coming in, one of the most different guys from all the stories I heard,” Richards told The Post after Thursday’s practice, referring to Carcillo’s history of 10 different fines or suspensions over his eight-year career. “I don’t know if he changed or it was overblown, but when he came in, he was real quiet, very professional.
“He’s in the gym every day, takes care of body, practices hard, works hard. So from what I heard — and that was a long time ago — he was a lot different. Professionalism and all that.”
Following Richards’ talk, Carcillo went out and had a terrific game, being a physical force, a loose-cannon agitator, and the man who scored the final goal that gave the Rangers a 4-1 win. It also gave the Blueshirts a 2-1 edge in this best-of-seven first-round playoff series heading into Friday night’s Game 4 in Philadelphia, a game for which Carcillo has seemingly made himself indispensable.
“I know my role and if I’m in the lineup — I’m an energy guy, physical, wear the other team down,” Carcillo said. “Chip in when I can offensively, and nothing really changes. I just have to be a little smarter going forward with the stuff after the whistle.”
Yes, of course, the after-the-whistle nonsense, the thing that is seemingly taking over as the storyline of this series. For the whole of the regular season — actually, for the whole of the past 40 years — the Flyers have predicated their game on being an intimidating team, one that was going to try to win by way of force more than skill.
And for two-plus years from 2008-2011, the head of that dragon was Carcillo, the man who exemplified that ugly persona. That memory is no more prevalent with the Rangers than from an incident on Jan. 21, 2010, when he attacked Marian Gaborik after the whistle, repeatedly punching the Blueshirts’ most talented player in a fight that was horribly one-sided.
It seemed like a similar pockmark was not too far off in Game 3, as well, when Carcillo gave a hard jab to Flyers captain Claude Giroux, all after the whistle that blew following an emotional fight between Carl Hagelin and Jakub Voracek. Carcillo followed that up soon thereafter by nearly attacking a referee after he was called for a hook on what appeared to be a good defensive play.
Carcillo said he had conversations with the coaching staff and with his teammates about controlling his temper, and that has turned out to be a theme throughout the lineup.
“I would say we’re having those conversations with our whole team,” coach Alain Vigneault said. “Playoff hockey is a very emotional time. Discipline is a very big part of any team’s plan. Especially in this series for us, we have to play whistle-to-whistle. We can’t get into those scrums after the whistles. We’ve done a really good job of that so far, and we need to continue to do that.”
Assuming Carcillo remains in the lineup, it’s now on him to continue to play to the Rangers’ strengths of speed and skill rather than submit to the Flyers’ brutishness.
“Every game is going to present you with different scenarios,” Richards said. “We’d rather just play hockey.”