GREENBURGH, N.Y. _ After two weeks of a training camp that coach David Quinn insisted was not a training camp, the Rangers had one last, brief skate at their practice facility Sunday and then it was off to Toronto, and the NHL bubble, for the league's 2019-20 restart. After four-and-a-half months of no games because of the coronavirus pandemic, the Rangers will play a practice game Wednesday against the rival Islanders, and then, finally, they will begin their best-of-5 qualifying series Saturday against the Carolina Hurricanes.
"It's a little surreal," defenseman Marc Staal said in one final, post-practice Zoom call, before the Rangers boarded a bus to take them to their charter flight to Toronto. "After half a summer, not knowing what was gonna happen, and now that the day is here I think everyone's pretty excited. I think the energy around the room was kind of giddy, and guys were excited to get there. The last week or so, you're kind of, just, waiting to go.
"I think everyone's itching to play competitive hockey again. To be honest, you can only practice so long before you want to, you know, hit someone, or, make an impact that way in a real game."
The Rangers reported to their practice facility on July 13 for the start of Phase 3 of the NHL's return to play plan, a training camp to prepare for the league's restart. On that day, though, Quinn told reporters that he didn't consider this a training camp, but saw the Rangers as picking up where they left off when the league paused play March 12. They were two points out of a playoff spot, with 12 games remaining, at that point, and Quinn said he was confident the team would have made the playoffs had the season continued. So over the last two weeks, the coach kept the same lines and defense pairs that had been together before the pause.
On Sunday, he said he hadn't learned anything new about his group from the last two weeks, and he said the coaching staff was "pleasantly surprised" at how well conditioned all the players were after all the time off.
"I think we all thought the worst might happen, and that certainly wasn't the case for us," he said. "I thought we were relatively sharp from the get-go. And then obviously the two first scrimmages we had were sloppy, and, you know, the last one was certainly more game-like.
"Our guys are excited to get going; excited to get to Toronto," he said. "We're excited to feel the bubble environment. And we're) just one day closer to playing a playoff game."
