Girardi a rock in front of goalie Biron

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 25/10/2011 (5459 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

NEW York Rangers defenceman Dan Girardi watched the mob scene of reporters close in on goalie Martin Biron after Monday night’s 2-1 over the Winnipeg Jets and couldn’t help a small smirk.

No Ranger had been called on more by coach John Tortorella on Monday night — Girardi played a team-high 25 minutes 40 seconds — but the accolades most of the time don’t go to the warrior defenceman.

Even when he has two assists in the tight game, including a clever slap-pass that teammate Ruslan Fedotenko redirected for the Rangers’ first goal.

That entire power play, all 60 seconds of it, was a “clinic” shift by Girardi, the 27-year-old from Welland, Ont., who has begun his fifth full-time NHL season.

He thwarted a couple of Jets clear-outs with smartness and then directed the Rangers to the lead.

“I look at Fedotenko, I look at Danny Girardi and I thought Marty Biron, I thought they were standouts,” Tortorella said after the win. Girardi and Biron certainly had to be.

The Jets swarmed the visitors for much of the third period of the 1-1 game until Fedotenko’s shot went in at 8:41.

Though the Rangers were pressured, they didn’t give in to stupid penalties or laziness. They were outshot 28-17 at the MTS Centre.

“Overall, we did a good job staying with it mentally,” Girardi said. “Even in the third period, we were getting hemmed in for the longest time and we stuck with it, drew a penalty and we scored on the power play.

“Didn’t matter how long they were in our end for, we just stuck with it, and good things will happen when you stick to the game plan.”

That the Rangers gave the Jets just one power play on Monday night was crucial, Girardi said.

“We don’t want to panic, start squeezing our sticks or getting on top of each other. We stayed tight, let them plan on the outside, and when the puck was in the middle we just tried to clear it out, not do anything fancy. We never gave in on those. Even guys who had two-minute shifts were still playing as hard as they can on those, where we showed we’re very in shape.

“People have seen we’ve taken a lot of penalties the last six games,” he said. “I think that’s been kind of killing us, killing the flow of the game. We’d get some pressure and it would just kill our momentum. Some games we’ve been killing seven or eight penalties and that’s going to put some stress on the guys.”

That was just adding to the Rangers’ demanding seven-game road trip to open the season, an adventure that started as one of the NHL teams in Europe to open the year.

“It was a big challenge for us mentally and physically, pretty much having to live in a hotel for 20-something days,” Girardi said.

“I think the record might not show it but we are gelling here as team. We did have some ups and downs during this seven games, but 3-2-2 is not too terrible when you’re on the road for a month.”

The Rangers are home, finally, on Thursday to the Leafs in the recently upgraded Madison Square Garden.

And they were happy to take home two important Eastern Conference points. “Coming into this game, an Eastern Conference game, you’ve got to win as many as you can,” Girardi said.

tim.campbell@freepress.mb.ca