TARRYTOWN, N.Y. — We’ll start with the pinnacle of Chris Kreider’s eventful summer: getting married in August. There were a few current and former teammates on hand for the event — most notably the guy standing up there with Kreider and his now-wife, Francesca.
“It meant the world,” Kreider said of Mika Zibanejad being his best man. “It’s a pretty tall ask.”
The “Kreibanejad” summer began a month earlier when Kreider took a pre-honeymoon trip to Europe and spent a night watching Zibanejad DJ at Lollapalooza in Stockholm. “First time I saw him in a venue like that,” Kreider said. “Pretty awesome experience. Not a bad hobby.”
The conversation with Kreider doesn’t flourish around personal moments. Much like his summer, it’s back to hockey, and quickly. Kreider took the early honeymoon so as not to disrupt his offseason training, which gets intense around mid-August. Kreider has been at Ben Prentiss’ Stamford, Conn. gym as long as he’s been in the NHL.
One of Prentiss’ summer workout regimens is pairing off his pro clients, both in the gym and on the ice. Kreider can reel off plenty of recognizable names of guys who have tried to keep up with him.
“Nathan Gerbe was the first,” he said. “Bits and pieces of Kevin Shattenkirk, John Hayden, Steven Santini. Few one-offs with Shayne Gostisbehere. Kenny Agostino one year. Patrick Harper, Drew O’Connor. And (Trevor) Zegras this year.”
It’s not an easy task for Kreider’s workout partner. “Some of his numbers are the highest in the gym,” O’Connor, the Penguins forward, said. “Jumps, squats, everything. He pushes me with everything. When we do sled days, that puke bucket is out every time. He’s definitely one of those guys that will push it, I’m pretty sure he’s used the bucket a few times. But you see him training that hard every summer even though he’s been around for a while now.”
Zegras said earlier this summer he tried to show Kreider a few stickhandling moves while Kreider was showing Zegras his skill at tipping pucks in front of the net. “He’s just an awesome guy to have around,” Zegras said. “You can learn a lot by watching him train.”
There’s no questioning what drives Kreider, even as he enters his 12th pro season. It’s the memory of nights like May 1, when the Rangers were meek in a Game 7 against the Devils. It marked yet another season without a Stanley Cup, 30 and counting for the organization, 10 and counting for its longest-tenured player. Kreider went to three Eastern Conference finals his first four years in the league and one the last eight.
Sitting atop the franchise list for playoff goals doesn’t mean much to him. A healthy season that could lead to Kreider becoming the fourth Rangers forward to play 800 games for the team is nice, but not enough.
“The longer I play, the more the loss to L.A. in the Cup Final hurts,” Kreider said of the Rangers’ 2014 Final loss. “At the time, my rookie year, you expect to be back, right? I don’t think it’s romanticizing to say that’s the most fun you’ll have as a player. Those are the things that stick with you.”
Kreider remembers all his summer workout partners and he surely remembers all the coaches and systems he’s had since he joined the Rangers’ 2012 playoff run after winning an NCAA title at Boston College. John Tortorella, Alain Vigneault, David Quinn, Gerard Gallant, now Peter Laviolette — the lingo changes, some of the structure changes, but the essence of each coach’s system is to play fast.
That’s never been a huge concern for Kreider, who at 32 is still among the faster players in the league. This Rangers team is not blessed with speed, even among its few younger players. But the goal of Laviolette’s system is to play fast, not skate fast, and there is a difference.
“There’s been teams that I’ve coached that have had success where if you actually break down the personnel, the players, maybe you wouldn’t see them as somebody with speed,” Laviolette said. “But I do think when the puck moves fast, when the feet move fast and the mind moves fast, and there’s a plan behind it, teams can play a fast game.”
Kreider is a thinker. Sometimes that’s hampered him, especially earlier in his career, when the thinking would occasionally overtake the doing and he’d be stuck out of position. He likes the foundation that’s been laid early in this camp by Laviolette so that there isn’t much thinking to do when the games start.
“You’re going to be reading and reacting in the moment, you’ve got a job to do and you do your job and trust the other guy’s going to do his,” Kreider said. “The game’s too fast to be guessing or thinking. When everyone’s on the same page, that’s what allows a team to be fast. Fastest guys in the league, slowest guys in the league — doesn’t matter. Plodders can look fast as long as they’re on the same page.”
It was a long, wondrous summer for Kreider. But the hockey memories are always there, driving him. One more year to try and make them go away for good.
(Photo: Rich Graessle / Getty Images)