SEASON ON ICE
Shattenkirk will return to radically different team than he joined
SUNRISE, Fla. — This is not the way Kevin Shattenkirk envisioned his first season with the Rangers.
The 29-year-old defenseman left money on the table this summer to sign a four-year, $26.6 million deal with the team he rooted for while growing up in New Rochelle. The Rangers had made the playoffs for seven straights years and were attempting to retool their roster on the fly without totally giving up the thought of contending.
But in training camp, Shattenkirk hurt his left knee. He played through it, not wanting to disappoint the organization and the fans, who heaped so much hope on the back of his No. 22 sweater. But Shattenkirk struggled to find his game and to play through his injury, and on Jan. 22 elected to have surgery to repair the torn meniscus in his knee.
While Shattenkirk was rehabbing, team president Glen Sather and general manager Jeff Gorton made a public declaration to entirely rebuild. In the lead-up to the Feb. 26 trade deadline, they sold off almost everything that wasn’t nailed down — including captain Ryan McDonagh, J.T. Miller, Rick Nash and Michael Grabner.
So now, as Shattenkirk has resumed skating with his teammates, a few introductions were probably in order. The Rangers are almost entirely out of the playoff picture, and everyone on the ice — and behind the bench — essentially is auditioning for what will be a very differentlooking future.
“It’s a hard thing to go through for these guys, harder than what I had to do,” Shattenkirk said after practicing on Friday, still some time away from returning to the lineup, while watching from the press box Saturday night as the Rangers fell to the Panthers, 4-3, in a shootout at BB&T Arena.
“I was on the outside looking in,” Shattenkirk said. “For these guys to have to go through it and play games while in the midst of knowing that some changes are going to come, that’s a hard thing mentally to work through. For me, I felt for these guys and it was tough being at home, because they were on the road a lot. But I think the way that they handled it was phenomenal — to be a teammate of these guys and know that they were doing everything they could to work through it and be professionals about it.”
The question of why Shattenkirk would return during such a muddled situation is answered by the fact that he still wants to compete and to contribute some positivity in the waning moments of this lost season. It’s unlikely he will be ready for either home game this week, Monday against the Hurricanes or Wednesday against the Penguins. But a return on Saturday night in St. Louis, where he played for the six pervious seasons before signing as a free agent on Broadway?
“I feel good. It’s come a long way,” he said. “I feel like I have my stride back, which is good. Have that last little bit of push that I feel like I was lacking before the surgery. It’s getting better and better every day. Now that I’m able to skate with these guys, you take little steps and try to immerse yourself into practice and situations that you can’t really replicate without playing with the team.”