TAMPA — It was such a strange thing Dan Girardi had to comprehend that he couldn’t even tell his wife right away.
It was about 2:45 in the afternoon and the longtime Rangers defenseman was walking to school to pick up his son. On the way, he got a phone call saying that the team was buying out the three remaining years of his six-year, $33 million contract.
“Obviously pretty upset,” Girardi said. “Not like mad, upset. Upset, just disappointed.”
But it wasn’t quite sinking in, so he kept walking. He got his son and still couldn’t call his wife for the 10-minute walk home, still trying to wrap his head around what had happened, and what might happen in the future. When he walked in the door, that’s when he was finally able to say something.
“It was still processing a little bit,” Girardi said Thursday morning, now able to look back and smile a little about it.
That’s because Girardi was proudly wearing the blue sweater of the Lightning, having signed a two-year, $6 million deal to play with his old Rangers buddies Ryan Callahan and Anton Stralman, set to play host to the current Rangers on Thursday night at Amalie Arena. The days between the buyout, announced on June 14, and the talking period starting a week before free agency opened on July 1, that was the toughest part. But eventually Girardi got a call directly from Tampa general manager Steve Yzerman, explaining the direction of this young and exciting team and where he might fit.
“When a guy like that gives you a call, personally, it’s kind of a no-brainer,” Girardi said. “I have a couple friends on the team and that helped the transition as well. It was a no-brainer for me — it’s a great place to play, a great place to live, a great city. I’m having such a great time.”
It helps that the first-place Lightning have started the year 10-2-1, scoring a league-best 4.08 goals per game with Steven Stamkos and Nikita Kucherov as Nos. 1 and 2 in the league in points. So the 33-year-old Girardi has been doing what he does best — blocking shots and playing sound defensively.
“We’re the benefactor of a cap world,” coach Jon Cooper said. “To bring in somebody, kind of a stabilizing force on the back end, he brings that. I think his presence in our locker room — the winning he’s been doing in New York for all these years, and to be honest, he’s a hell of a guy — so he fit what we were looking for. He’s been good for us.”
Girardi and Callahan remained close even after Callahan was traded to Tampa just before the 2014 deadline. But when it started to be known that the Lightning were interested, Callahan spoke to Girardi every other day.
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“It wasn’t that much about hockey. It was about his family, where they would live, the community, schooling,” Callahan said. “People forget about that, but it’s such an important thing. It’s not a hard place to sell, that’s for sure.”
The fact that there is no income tax in Florida certainly didn’t hurt, either. But just getting a contract offer from a team like this was just about as good as it could have worked out for Girardi. And despite having his own struggles while with the Rangers, he sure does seems missed as the Blueshirts are 4-7-2 while struggling to find any consistency on their back end.
But the Rangers are now a thing in the past for Girardi, and that fact has finally sunk in and he has moved on.
“Obviously I wanted to play out my career in New York, but that wasn’t an option,” Girardi said. “It is what it is now. I couldn’t be happier to be in Tampa right now. The team is playing great and having fun. Just having a great time here.”