The biggest sigh of relief from the Rangers front office during the first half of this season came when Henrik Lundqvist quickly got over his early struggles and showed he is still as good a netminder as there is in this league, rewarded with his fourth All-Star selection. At 35 years old, with three more seasons after this one carrying an annual salary-cap hit of $8.5 million, it was necessary to know he had more — if not a lot more — left in the tank.
But after that, general manager Jeff Gorton has to be pleased with the way veteran defenseman Marc Staal has reacted to a summer in which he was oh-so-close to having his contract bought out. Instead, Gorton decided to take a path of lesser resistance (as in, less years remaining on the contract) and bought out the three years left on the deal for old friend Dan Girardi.
It was a bit of a wake-up call to Staal, who, like everyone, knew change was coming this past offseason. But he was still a little shellshocked when it happened.
“The whole team went into the summer not knowing what was going to happen,” Staal told The Post recently in a rare quiet moment at the training facility before the five-day bye week, which will end with a practice late Friday and then a Saturday afternoon Garden match against the Islanders.
“It’s still surprising and shocking when things like that go down, and they’re your friends and you don’t want to see them leave. But that’s the nature of the beast that we live in. When they told me I’d be back at training camp, that’s what I turned my attention, and my mindset, to getting ready and being the best that I can be.”
The Rangers defense was supposed to improve from a weakness to a strength, when it was assumed that Girardi was simply being replaced by marquee free agent Kevin Shattenkirk. But it hasn’t exactly worked out like that, most notably because of the play of captain Ryan McDonagh, who dealt with an abdomen strain early in the year and has never reach the height of his game for any consistent period of time.
But almost as surprisingly, Staal has been a stabilizing factor coming off a second-round exit at the hands of the Senators this past postseason when he seemed to constantly be scrambling in his own end.
“We had a discussion about the season, his season in particular, the things that he needed to focus on and do well,” coach Alain Vigneault said. “And he has done that.”
The one thing Vigneault pointed to is Staal’s ability to move the puck quickly, something that had never really been a strength of his game but it is what the coach demands of his defensemen in order to play that up-tempo style he so covets.
“I’ve always liked the way he defends. I know he’s got a great stick, he’s strong on his one-on-one’s. But I will say that so far this year, I find him more effective with the puck,” Vigneault said. “He’s been able to find the easy open outlet quicker, which has enabled him and his ‘D’ pair to spend a little bit less time in our zone. He’s had tough matchups, he’s handled them well. I really like the way he came to camp, his attitude, and the work that he put in so far.”
It has already been a long career on Broadway for Staal, who will turn 31 on Saturday. The second-oldest brother from the Staal clan up in Thunder Bay, Ontario, still has three more seasons left on his deal, carrying an annual salary-cap charge of $5.7 million.
see also
Rangers shouldnt let winning fool them at trade deadline
Regarding the Rangers, a bubble team in a bubble league:…
This is his 11th season with the Rangers, who took him 12th pick in the 2005 draft. His 731 career regular-season games played ranks 11th on the franchise’s all-time list, that to go along with 104 postseason games.
Staal now lives up in the Westchester suburbs, raising his two daughters with his high-school sweetheart, Lindsay. A lot has gone down in his time here — including the horrific eye injury in 2013 and a handful of concussions — but he and the Rangers are both thankful for a small revival in his game.
“I don’t think you take anything for granted. That’s the way I treated every year,” Staal said. “You want to play well and prove yourself all over again. That’s going to happen when you play for a team for a long time. You’re going to have your ups and downs, and you have to make sure you’re trying to be at the top of your game and playing well. That was the mindset going into camp — and I reminded myself every day going forward.”