Here is an addendum to Capitals coach Barry Trotz’s perceived dis of Kevin Shattenkirk on Dec. 7, the day before the defenseman faced his team for the first time since his short stay in D.C. as a rental following last season’s deadline.
“He came up to me and apologized after the game,” Shattenkirk told The Post following Monday’s practice. “He explained what he had said and told me that it had been portrayed differently than he intended. I appreciated that.”
Shattenkirk admitted that the comments in which Trotz said that No. 22 was not “a one-two” top pair defenseman were on his mind when he took the ice for the following night’s first shift on which his turnover led to the Caps’ first goal at 0:14.
“That game I felt I had a point to prove and then the first shift it’s in the net,” said Shattenkirk, whose Blueshirts meet the Ducks at the Garden on Tuesday. “I felt that I was playing catch-up the rest of the way.
“But after the game, talking to him and with the explanation he gave me, I put it out of my mind. It hasn’t stuck with me.”
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If Henrik Lundqvist seemed all but out on his feet leaving the ice following Saturday’s 3-2 overtime victory in the 5:00 start that followed Friday night’s 4-2 triumph over the Kings at the Garden in which the puck dropped at 7:00, there was a reason for it.
“It was the most tired I’ve ever been in the regular season,” the King said on Monday.” I knew it was going to be a physical challenge. I started cramping a little bit in my hands and feet in the third period.”
Well, it’s not as if he needed those to stop the puck.
Lundqvist is expected to be in nets Tuesday for his 29th start in 34 games. The 35-year-old Swede has thrived under the heavy workload he has sought, going 13-4 with a 2.34 GAA and .928 save percentage in 18 starts in 20 games since the beginning of November.
The franchise goaltender averaged 70 starts from 2006-07 through 2010-11. He started 62 games in 2011-12 and then 43 of 48 in the lockout-truncated 2012-13. The King has averaged 55 starts the last three years, including the 2014-15 season in which he was sidelined for nearly two months with the vascular injury he sustained while being hit in the throat with a shot.
The Rangers were shorthanded seven times (for 11:45) on Saturday for the first time since Alain Vigneault took over behind the bench in 2013-14. The Blueshirts, who killed six and won it on an OT power play on the B’s second too-many-men infraction of the match, were last down a man seven times in the 2012-13 opener (Jan. 19, 2013), also in Boston.