A Moment For Christopher James Kreider
April 23, 2012. The New York Rangers were on the brink of elimination in the opening round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs against the Ottawa Senators. In just his fourth game in the NHL, Chris Kreider used his speed to get open of the left wing side of the net and Derek Stepan found him with a perfect pass to rip a wrist shot right past Craig Anderson to extend the Rangers lead.
This ended up being the game winning goal to keep the Rangers alive in the playoffs and helped spark their comeback in the series. That series win also propelled them through two more rounds of playoffs before eventually being eliminated by the New Jersey Devils in the Eastern Conference Final. While that playoff run still ended sooner than fans would’ve hoped, this was only the beginning for the man who may very well become the last New York Ranger to don the jersey number 20.
Chris Kreider’s New York Rangers story begins in the 2009 Draft where the Rangers selected him with the 19th overall pick. The Boxford, MA native quickly rose through the New England Prep School Hockey ranks and landed him with Boston College where he spent three seasons before turning pro with the Rangers in their 2012 postseason run. In that span, Kreider helped BC win two NCAA Championships, as well as Team USA in winning a Gold and Bronze medal at the World Juniors in 2010 and 2011. He would also become the NHL player with the most goals in the Stanley Cup Playoffs without having played an NHL regular season game as he went on to score five goals in the 2012 postseason.
Flash forward over eleven years later, the New York Rangers headed into a Friday Night match-up with the Anaheim Ducks. There was nothing out of the ordinary about it, just another night of an 82 game season in mid-December. However, Chris Kreider, who has been a regular with the Rangers in every season that followed his first goal in the playoffs, went into that game in sole possession of fourth on the franchises all-time goal leaders list with 279 career goals. Just one behind one of the 1994 team’s “core four” in Adam Graves, who had 280 throughout his ten season career that spanned across several different teams.
December 15, 2023. After a bit of a shaky start, the Rangers trailed the Ducks 1-0 through the games opening period but as we neared the first intermission, Rangers history would unfold before our eyes. Mika Zibanejad pulled the puck from a battle along the boards and upon cutting towards the net, Chris Kreider ended up with a clear shot that was destined for the back of the net to tie the game up and to tie Kreider with Adam Graves at 280 career goals for third on the all-time list. This was only the beginning.
Kreider has become notorious throughout his career for scoring goals on the power play as well as through tip-ins and redirects. Therefore it was only natural for his record breaking goal to come in the form of a deflection on the power play. Zibanejad and Artemiy Panarin cycled the puck at the Rangers point and it was Panarin that fired a pass over to Kreider who set himself up perfectly for the redirect. Kreider’s second of the night moved him ahead of Adam Graves for sole possession of third place at 281 goals as the Rangers went on to beat Anaheim 5-1.
Now let’s backtrack a bit. The Rangers’ run to the Eastern Conference Final in 2012 was just the beginning of what became a handful of really successful runs, coming quite close but not exactly close enough. This included a run to the Stanley Cup Final as well as several trips to the Conference Finals and Conference Semifinals. If you were to ask anyone back then who on those rosters would go on to become the longest tenured Ranger, I’m not sure Kreider would have been the obvious nor most common answer. While he was still young, there wasn’t a ton of hype surrounding him to the point that anyone saw him becoming a New York Rangers Mount Rushmore candidate. Frankly in the decade that followed, it wasn’t so clear either.
Kreider became perennial for coming so close to being a 30-goal scorer, but never quite made it over that hump. Between 2014-2020, there was only one season where Kreider didn’t put up 20 or more goals and that was in the 2017-18 season when he only played in 58 games due to injury. In that same timespan, Kreider signed a pair of bridge deals following his entry-level contract. The first of which extended him for two years (2014-16) and the second for four years through 2020. As that deal neared its end and the team was in the midst of a serious rebuild, it still wasn’t certain that Kreider was in this team’s long term plans. That was until John Davidson announced in a press conference that was quite the roller coaster of emotions that Chris Kreider had signed a 7-year contract extension which would carry him through the 2026-27 season.
That decision quickly paid off as finally, in the 2021-22 season, Chris Kreider got over that 30-goal hump and did so in such an incredible fashion. Not only did he hit 30 goals for the first time, he went on to hit 40, and 50, becoming just the fourth New York Ranger to ever hit the 50-goal mark in a season. He would finish that campaign with 52 goals and 25 assists for a career high 77 point season. And just to prove that the thirty goal mark wasn’t a fluke, he followed his 52-goal season with 36 goals and 18 assists last year and is currently on pace to finish around his career high season once again this season as he currently has 23 goals and 22 assists through 49 games played. For those who are interested in the math, that puts him just four points under a point-per-game pace.
If that wasn’t enough to make him stand out, Kreider continues to solidify himself in Rangers history as he recently passed Mr. Ranger himself (Rod Gilbert) for most goals scored in Madison Square Garden with 166 of his career count coming at the ‘World’s Most Famous Arena’.
Statistically speaking, Chris Kreider is already in consideration for one of, if not the greatest Rangers player of all time. He’s 55 goals behind Jean Ratelle for second all time and currently ranks 10th on the franchises all-time points list. Kreider is also fourth in power play goals as well as game-winning goals and despite how time usually works, he has only shown us so far that he’s getting even better with age. While that’s an extremely difficult trend to keep with, the chances for Kreider to continue to break Rangers records will be there as he continues his historic career as a New York Ranger.
Numbers aside, Chris Kreider also means a ton to his teammates, the organization and the fanbase alike. He’s been awarded the Steven McDonald Extra Effort Award in the past and probably should have won it more throughout his career as he’s been such a pillar of excellence throughout this team’s best moments in recent history. On and off the ice, he’s a leader and such a face to the franchise. He may not wear the “C” on his jersey but he is just as respected and a significant part of this team’s leadership group. Without him, there’s no question this team wouldn’t be as successful as they have been in the last decade.
On a personal level, Kreider has easily been one of my favorite Rangers to watch over the years and will always hold a special place in my Blueshirts heart. When I was nearing the end of high school, my parents took me into the city on or around my birthday. I didn’t know it at the time, but they were planning to buy me my first true authentic Rangers jersey. We ended up at Cosby’s, a smaller shop right around the corner from the Garden. They had practically every player’s jersey hanging up behind the counter. There were so many iconic Rangers on the roster at that time, I could’ve gone with Lundqvist, McDonagh, Nash, so many other names but somehow, I landed on the younger player that I was becoming a big fan of in Christopher James Kreider.
A decade or so later and he’s the only remaining player from that era still on the team. Needless to say, I made the right decision with my first jersey. On top of everything, my Dad and I were at the Garden for that mid-December Friday Night outing with the Ducks where that same #20 would tie and pass Adam Graves on the franchise’s all-time goal scoring list. The Chase Bridge was rocking as he made history on a night that along with getting that first jersey, would become a memory I’ll cherish for the rest of my life.
All things considered, it’s hard to argue Chris Kreider’s impact on the Rangers organization as he has certainly become such a key part of this franchise over the years. Of course there’s one glaring hole in his resume that we’re all hoping and praying gets filled within the next couple of years but even so, his accomplishments and having been a homegrown, team drafted talent make his Broadway residency so truly special. When all is said and done, there is a very good chance there will be a spot in the rafters between Jean Ratelle’s number 19 and former teammate Henrik Lundqvist’s number 30 waiting for Kreider’s number 20.
