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Greg Wyshynski, ESPNMay 21, 2024, 07:00 AM ET
CloseGreg Wyshynski is ESPN’s senior NHL writer.
NEW YORK — Mark Messier first met Chris Kreider when the New York Rangers forward was playing at Boston College over a dozen years ago.
“He looked like he was going 100 mph standing still on the ice. He looked like a Ferrari,” Messier said. “You don’t realize how big he is until you get up next to him. He’s so perfectly proportioned.”
It’s the 30th anniversary of the Rangers’ last Stanley Cup victory in 1994, perhaps the signature moment in Messier’s Hockey Hall of Fame career. He won league MVP twice and playoff MVP once, and he’s third all time in career points scored. But that image of Messier becoming the first Rangers player in 54 years to lift the Cup — after successfully guaranteeing victory in the Eastern Conference finals as their captain — still defines him decades later.
“I’ll tell you what: You make your money in the regular season, but you make your name in the playoffs,” Messier said. “And Chris Kreider is a playoff performer.”
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No one has scored more postseason goals in Rangers history than Kreider’s 47 tallies in 117 games. The 33-year-old winger is also second to defenseman Dan Girardi (122 games) in team history in postseason appearances. When the games matter most, Kreider has mattered the most for the Rangers.
“At the end of the day, there’s a lot of things you have to do inside of the game. But one thing I know you have to do is put the puck in the net, and he has an incredible knack for that,” said coach Peter Laviolette, who led the Rangers to the President’s Trophy in his first season with New York. “Chris has been a great leader on this team. We needed to have a big performance in Game 6, and I thought he really delivered.”
If Kreider’s reputation as a playoff star wasn’t already cemented, it became concrete after his natural hat trick in the third period to eliminate the Carolina Hurricanes in Game 6 of their second-round…
Source link : https://www.espn.com/nhl/story/_/id/40187423/nhl-playoffs-2024-stanley-cup-chris-kreider-new-york-rangers-history-ranking-greatest
Author : Greg Wyshynski
Publish date : 2024-05-21 11:04:34
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