RALEIGH, North Carolina – When the Rangers’ longest-tenured player, Chris Kreider, was suddenly sidelined the day after his name was mentioned in president and general manager Chris Drury’s league-wide memo eliciting trade partners, it appeared to be a peculiar coincidence.
The 33-year-old, however, wished to set the record straight ahead of his second straight scratch.
“Back spasms,” Kreider said after an optional morning skate before the Rangers take on the Hurricanes Wednesday night.
“Back locked up on me – Sacrum. Few games back it was lumbar [spine, the lower back made up of five or six vertebrae that support most of the body’s weight and allow for movement] and then during training camp it was thoraxes [the chest, or the part of the body between the neck and the abdomen].
“Very independent, annoying things. So we’re working on it. Done a couple things to remedy it so it doesn’t happen anymore.”
Kreider hasn’t heard his name amongst trade chatter since leading up to the 2020 trade deadline, when the Rangers essentially had to decide between keeping him or defenseman Brady Skjei due to cap restraints.
Skjei was shipped to Carolina and the Rangers signed Kreider to a seven-year, $45.5 million contract with a no-move clause, which was modified to a 15-team no-trade list this season.
Noting that he’s been in New York for 13 seasons now, Kreider said there will always be noise when playing for a team like the Rangers.
Still, the way Drury proclaimed himself open for business to the other 31 NHL general managers less than 20 games into the season — mentioning a list of players that wasn’t limited to just Kreider or their captain, Jacob Trouba — has shades of the ruthlessness the Rangers head honcho showed when circumventing Barclay Goodrow’s no-trade list this summer to shed his $3,641,667 cap hit.
“Shouldn’t trivialize someone’s feelings, but how you feel doesn’t affect your ability to do something that you’ve done for the entirety of your life – unless you let it,” Kreider said.
“There’s guys in here who will say there are games where they come in and they feel great and they don’t play well. There’s games where they’re under the weather, they’re sick, maybe they’re a little banged up and all of sudden the puck is following them around. Body knows what to do, just got to do it your own way and let it do it.”
Kreider said he has had conversations with Drury, who has likely made a point to have several meetings with players in the wake of all the outside chatter. There are always many conversations throughout a season, Kreider said, acknowledging that he’s been part of the leadership group for a while now.
With nine goals and zero assists on the season, Kreider has not added much to the lines he’s skated on or been his usual force on the power play.
There’s discontent throughout the entire locker room with the way the team has played as a whole, but the Rangers are trying to use it as fuel.
“I think it’s pretty obvious there’s frustration, angst, tension,” Kreider said of the feeling in the Rangers’ locker room right now. “Good. We’re 20 games in. Let’s go through this s–t now and figure out who we are. We had the best regular season in the history of an Original Six franchise last year, won a Presidents’ Trophy and didn’t go as far as we would’ve liked. We’re getting exposed right now. Our warts are out there and teams are picking on the things we don’t do well and we’ve gotten away from the things we do do well.
“We don’t necessarily know what this is right now, right? This could just be part of the story. We look back at this and say, ‘This made us better.’”
