Chris Kreider finally tasting rewards of Rangers’ rebuild

RALEIGH, N.C. — Chris Kreider does not think about The Letter. 

“Especially after a Game 7 win,” the Rangers’ longest-tenured player said late Monday night. 

If there is some introspection going on within Kreider, this is not the setting in which he will show it. A dingy back room in PNC Arena in front of cameras and a gaggle of reporters does not lend itself to that. 

But there is something poetic in Kreider, the bridge player between the Rangers of Henrik Lundqvist and the Rangers of Igor Shesterkin, scoring twice in a domineering 6-2 Game 7 victory over Carolina to send the Blueshirts back to the Eastern Conference Final for the first time since 2015. 

That series was also against the Lightning. And Kreider, all of 23 years old when the Rangers were shut out in Game 7 at Madison Square Garden, losing their last best chance to win a Stanley Cup with that group of players, is the only one left. 

Since then, he has endured every nadir of the rebuild. The tail end of Alain Vigneault’s tenure, which finished with a 34-39-9 2017-18 season — at the time, the first losing season for the franchise since 2003-04. Three years of David Quinn in which the most meaningful games were three straight no-shows against the Hurricanes in the Toronto bubble. And in February 2018, The Letter, telling fans to expect a teardown. 

That process is over now. And this is the result. 

“All of a sudden, I’m the old guy,” Kreider said. “But there’s obviously some similarities [between the teams].” 

At the top of the list: Both can be characterized as “cockroaches.” 

“We just didn’t go away,” Kreider said. “That’s always been, I guess, ingrained in the culture of every good team I’ve been on here. We don’t go away. Regardless of the score. Regardless of where the game’s at. We just keep on trying to find our game.” 

The Rangers had to do no looking for their game on Monday night, taking an early 2-0 lead — the second of which came on a Kreider power-play tip-in — and never once looking back. He added his second goal at 3:59 of the third, a dashing breakaway with a backhand finish past Pyotr Kochetkov. It was Kreider’s 60th goal this season after he tied Adam Graves for second in franchise history with 52 during the regular season. With two more, he will pass the 62 that Graves finished with at the end of that postseason. 

The year, of course, was 1993-94. The Rangers hope this season ends in the same place as that one — a goal that now seems more tangible than ever. 

Kreider, down and self-critical sitting in the same seat just days earlier after the Rangers suffered a demoralizing Game 5 loss, had as little interest in dissecting what changed as he did in talking about The Letter. 

“Puck went in when I shot it,” he said. “I just think a rising tide lifts all ships.”