The Tampa Bay Lightning are gifted, rugged and playoff examined. Because the two-time defending champions, they possess a uncommon understanding of what it takes to hold the Stanley Cup across the rink — twice in two years.
However Barclay Goodrow, the Rangers ahead, can be gifted, rugged and playoff examined. And he’s a two-time defending champion, as nicely.
Goodrow performed for the Lightning in 2020 and 2021 and helped them win these Cups. His expertise in that profitable enterprise is a part of what made Rangers Basic Supervisor Chris Drury signal Goodrow as a free agent final summer season. Goodrow was given a six-year, $21.8-million contract, partly, so as to add an intangible, however important, profitable ingredient to a crew making ready to make deep playoff runs.
“That, for certain, was an enormous piece of it,” Drury mentioned on Tuesday on the Rangers’ follow facility whereas explaining why he needed Goodrow, who was initially signed by the San Jose Sharks in 2014.
Drury added, “What he’s gone by way of, what he went by way of in San Jose, on and off the ice, and what a personality participant he was, and the issues he might do, not solely within the playoffs however within the common season to assist create, construct and hold a tradition. He’s carried out every thing attainable to do this.”
Starting on Wednesday at Madison Sq. Backyard, Goodrow will flip that have and expertise again on his outdated crew because the Rangers open the Jap Convention finals towards the Lightning.
Goodrow, 29, is an instance to the youthful gamers, and maybe some veterans, too, of what it takes to win on the highest stage. However he was equally drawn to the Rangers for what they had been constructing.
“I noticed the potential and the trajectory this crew has been on,” Goodrow mentioned. “They drafted nicely with so many gifted gamers that you simply see in these playoffs coming into their very own and changing into nice gamers. I noticed that potential and it appeared like an ideal match for myself.”
The Lightning have a locker room stuffed with gamers like Goodrow, and certainly one of them is defenseman Ryan McDonagh, a former Ranger stalwart and the Blueshirts’ final captain.
At any Rangers sport, it’s common to see followers sporting McDonagh’s No. 27 jersey in vivid blue, white and pink, with a “C” on the chest. (The crew has not named a captain since buying and selling McDonagh in 2018). In Tampa, Fla., many Lightning followers nonetheless personal white and blue shirts with Goodrow’s title on them.
They had been by no means traded for each other, however they’ve flipped locations, every bringing a measure of character-based management so prized in N.H.L. locker rooms, and on the ice.
Chris Kreider, a veteran ahead and the Rangers’ main goal-scorer this season, advised that McDonagh’s instance helped set up the inspiration on which the present crew has been constructed. McDonagh helped tutor Kreider, and Kreider has helped tutor lots of the youthful gamers on the present roster, all of whom have been instrumental in carrying the Rangers farther than anticipated this yr.
“Mac is among the greatest people I’ve ever performed with,” Kreider mentioned. “I discovered a lot from him about be a professional, conduct your self on and off the ice. There are a variety of issues he did for our group when he was right here. It’s a really, very lengthy listing. He was our instance of what it meant to be a Ranger, and he’s been instrumental for them and all of the success they’ve had.”
A troublesome, left-handed defenseman, McDonagh, 32, performed for the Rangers from 2010 till he was traded to the Lightning in 2018 as a part of an overarching plan to revamp the crew with youthful gamers. The commerce additionally helped construct the Lightning into the crew it’s, too.
“That was the primary piece going ahead in changing into the crew we’re right this moment,” Lightning ahead Alex Killorn mentioned. “He’s a frontrunner on this crew. When you concentrate on that previous playoff collection, he was certainly one of our greatest, if not our greatest participant.”
McDonagh was additionally an enormous a part of the final Rangers crew to go to the Stanley Cup finals, in 2014, and performed on the Rangers squad that was eradicated by the Lightning in Recreation 7 of the 2015 Jap Convention finals, quashing the Rangers’ hopes of going again to the finals and profitable the Cup.
Kreider referred to as it “poetic” that the groups will meet in the identical spherical this yr, too. This time, he won’t have McDonagh to lean on, however Tampa Bay won’t have Goodrow, who may need stayed in Tampa if the Lightning had extra salary-cap area.
“We knew we had been going to lose some gamers that contributed to 2 Stanley Cups and had been significantly appreciated by me, by the coaches, the opposite gamers and by our followers,” Lightning Basic Supervisor Julien BriseBois mentioned. “We all know that was going to be a loss. However we additionally went into the low season with the thought of attempting to win some extra.”
The Goodrow-McDonagh convergence is certainly one of a number of intriguing subplots to the collection, together with the matchup of two coaches with deep respect for each other. The Rangers’ Gerard Gallant was an assistant to the Lightning’s Jon Cooper for Canada on the 2017 world championships. The collection additionally includes a matchup of the 2 greatest goalies within the N.H.L.: the Lightning’s Andrei Vasilevskiy and the Rangers’ Igor Shesterkin.
There may be additionally the difficulty of relaxation vs. rhythm. The Rangers have been taking part in to a gradual beat of principally one sport each different day for 2 weeks, by way of two powerful, seven-game collection. That conga line of video games started Could 3.
The Lightning, then again, could must shake off rust. Tampa Bay swept the Florida Panthers within the second spherical and the gamers haven’t been in a aggressive sport since Could 23. Once they take the ice on the Backyard on Wednesday, they are going to have had eight days between video games.
However for a crew that has performed in additional video games over the previous three seasons than some other crew (the identical is true for Goodrow), a relaxation was welcome.
“If there was any yr we might have used this break, this was the yr,” Cooper mentioned. “We’re grateful we obtained it. We earned it. However now we’ve obtained to do one thing with it. That’s our subsequent step.”
