LOS ANGELES – For Chris Kreider, returning to the downtown LA arena with Jonathan Quick in his net, as opposed to the one on the other side of the rink, must be strange.
The ice at Crypto.com Arena — or better known as Staples Center to Rangers fans — hosted one of most gut-wrenching moments in Kreider’s 12-year NHL career, when the Blueshirts lost to Quick and the Kings in Game 5 of the 2014 Stanley Cup Finals.
Ten years later, with Quick making his highly-anticipated homecoming to LA in a Rangers jersey behind him on Saturday, it still pains Kreider to recall what No. 32 was like to face as an opponent.
“It’s a little bit of trauma every day that I shoot on him in practice,” the left wing told The Post before the Rangers faced the Kings Saturday night.
Kreider, who was 23 during the 2014 run and had only been in the league for a short while, actually skated with Quick in the summer in Connecticut.
He couldn’t score on Quick then, either, Kreider said, noting that there was never a lot of net to shoot at with his 6-foot-1, 215-pound frame.
They had spoken in passing, but naturally didn’t get as acquainted as they have since Quick signed a one-year, $925,000 deal with the Rangers this past offseason.
All Kreider knew was that if Quick wasn’t already the best American-born goaltender at the time, he was well on his way.
Thinking back on that series, Kreider described Quick as the pulse of that 2014 Kings team.
He made timely, big saves, and the players battled hard in front of him.
There was just a certain aura around Quick, Kreider recalled.
There are too many big moments that Quick had a hand in to count, but Kreider had his own, too.
Trailing 1-0 in the second period of Game 5 in 2014, the Rangers had multiple bodies swarming the net in an attempt to even the score.
And yet Quick, who shut out the Rangers in Game 3, stood tall.
That was until Kreider posted up in front of him on the power play and tapped in a centering feed from Ryan McDonagh to knot the game at one-all.
Of course, everyone knows how that story ends, but Kreider will always have that goal on Quick.
“I half expected him to get a pad on it,” Kreider said. “Felt like every time we had a two-on-one and I thought I had an open net, all of a sudden his leg came over. He’s doing some full split. It felt like every time we did beat him, it found the post, which I think is just a sign of a goalie who is on his angles, really on his angles.
“He was like that all the time, too. Even if you beat him, it’s not going in. It’s post and out, instead of post and in. He was really on top of his game. I think you got to appreciate just the way he plays, too. He has a very unique style, very athletic.
“There’s a lot of goalies who are very positionally strong, point to point, but he definitely makes the position look fun the way he moves.”