How’s this to put a wrap on Girardi’s career as a Ranger? He broke two ribs in Game 3 against Montreal and another one early in the Ottawa series. And played on. Of course he did. He played with a right ankle twice its normal size after wearing some sort of vacuum device on it for weeks so he could get on the ice after sustaining a gruesome wound blocking a shot. Of course he did.
I happened to take notice of it as he walked very slowly to the shower in Ottawa after the crushing Game 5 overtime defeat. “That’s your ankle?” I said aloud in wonderment, as much to myself as to Girardi. He merely shrugged.
Dan Girardi’s family watches him warm up against the Canadiens in April.Getty Images
All right. The contract. The six-year, $33 million deal that in some quarters overwhelmed the narrative the past couple of seasons. Remember, Girardi was a pending free agent as the 2014 trade deadline approached. The Rangers, who had designs on winning the Stanley Cup and had no interest in a rebuild, were about to trade Ryan Callahan, also a pending free agent, after negotiations with him broke down.
There is not a team extant under those circumstances that would not have signed Girardi to that extension. I believe that. That year, the Rangers went to the Stanley Cup final. The next year, they won the Presidents’ Trophy and went to Game 7 of the conference final, through which Girardi played with a Grade 1 MCL sprain. Of course he did.