Mika Zibanejad knows the Rangers have a line to toe. They proved Monday night — to the tune of several helmet-launching, fight-sparking hits from Jacob Trouba — that there’s a physical trait, perhaps hidden at times, to their game. That, if the right scenario emerges, they can be the initiator instead of the retaliator.
But the Rangers don’t necessarily want that to become their focus. It’s not the way the modern-day NHL works, head coach Gerard Gallant said, and the physical outburst in the Blueshirts’ win against the Flames was more of an anomaly than a possible norm. Those three fights, and the minor, unpenalized scuffles around them, happen “once in a while” and “in spurts like that,” and Gallant doesn’t see that degree of physicality repeating Wednesday against the Canucks.
“The balance is everything,” Zibanejad told The Post following practice Tuesday. “You don’t want to veer to the wrong side of things, when you only focus on that, because there’s enough skilled guys, there’s enough good teams that will make you pay when those things don’t work out.”
After Monday’s game, the Rangers sat in a tie for 11th in the NHL with 15 fights this year, according to Hockey Fights. The Flyers lead with 25. Three teams are tied for the fewest with three. The Rangers had 18 all of last regular season — and 22, 21 and 25 the three before that, respectively. But in 2022-23, their fights have been clustered; it’s not a one-here, one-there arrangement. Twelve of those 15 fights occurred within a five-game sample.
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For Trouba, Monday was the second time this season the captain fought twice in the same game. The other occurred Dec. 3 against the Blackhawks, and his second scuffle that night ended with Trouba skating toward the tunnel and whipping his helmet off the boards — trying to fire up the crowd, and his teammates, at the end of the second period in an eventual 5-3 loss.
What followed, though, were 11 wins across the Rangers’ next 14 games.
“He’s a guy that I don’t want to cross the middle of the ice when he’s on the ice,” Zibanejad said.
Trouba doesn’t look to make hits like the ones he handed out against Calgary. But if those opportunities present themselves — like Dillon Dube carrying the puck across his own blueline, or Nazem Kadri trying to cut toward the Rangers’ net with his head down — then he’ll make sure to finish the check, with caveats that they’re clean and don’t result in a penalty.
The first hit, and fight, from Trouba came with six minutes left in the opening period. As Dube tried to deke to his left, Trouba barreled into him with his right shoulder and knocked Dube to the ice. Calgary defenseman Chris Tanev then came over to defend Dube.
After the second hit, when Trouba leveled Kadri and the star center’s helmet popped off, the Rangers’ captain didn’t feel forced to join another fight. He didn’t want to not be ready, but engaging in multiple fights wasn’t something Trouba had “an issue with,” he said Tuesday.
“It’s not like [Trouba] plans it before the game where the coaches say, ‘We’ve got to make sure we finish this guy real hard,’ ” Gallant said. “It’s just part of the game.”
Even Gallant was a bit surprised by all the fights. He was still sifting through that nearly 15 hours later, too. The game against the Flames was “different.” He hypothesized Monday night, jokingly, that maybe his players were “pissed” that the 10-day All-Star break was too short.
Gallant called it the first time he had been involved in a game of that caliber since taking over as head coach for the 2021-22 season. Even rookie Will Cuylle had joined and logged his second NHL fight.
“I don’t think you see that in our team a lot,” Gallant said.
But, defenseman Ryan Lindgren added, the Rangers also demonstrated they could replicate that style of play, too.
“I think that bodes well for us that we know that if things get maybe a little out of hand or physical, that we can match that,” Lindgren said.
