RANGERS at KINGS – Tonight 10:30 – MSG ESPN (1050 AM)
LOS ANGELES – Maybe it was nothing, but it’s far more likely that it was not only something, but something significant in the making of the Rangers, 2006-07.
It was the end of the first period Saturday night in Phoenix and Coyote defenseman Derek Morris, who’d been ridden into the end wall by Jaromir Jagr with 10 seconds to go, was barking at No. 68, apparently attempting to goad him into dropping his gloves. Jagr returned the vocal fire. Morris attempted to get up close and personal.
In stepped, or to be more precise, skated, Brendan Shanahan.
The biggest disappointment of the season’s first nine games wasn’t the 4-5 record or the disorganized play on the defensive side of the puck, but rather it had been the Rangers’ failure to watch each other’s back generally, and to protect Jagr, specifically.
But in Game 10, Shanahan, who wears an “A” on his sweater, decided enough was enough, and he acted upon it. He came off the bench at the end of the period and he put an end to Morris’ attempt to challenge Jagr.
Coincidentally or not, what had been a 1-1 game after the first became 5-1 midway through the second and ended 7-3, sending the Rangers into tonight’s match against the Kings with somewhat of a strut.
“I saw [Morris] lipping off to Jags and sensed that there might be some trouble,” Shanahan, whose team-leading ninth goal closed the scoring, told The Post following the team’s practice here yesterday.
“Jags was trying to explain that he’d held back on the check and just leaned into him, but he wasn’t buying it and it wasn’t ending.
“I wasn’t really big on the way things were developing.
I wasn’t going to have it go on. So I got between them, we had some words, and it cooled off pretty quickly.” Perhaps it wasn’t a seminal moment, but it was a moment in the season unlike any before it.
“We’re a team,” Shanahan said.
“We’re in this together.” The 3-9 Coyotes may be the worst team in the league, and the 3-8-2 Kings may not be far behind (or ahead), but that doesn’t diminish the strides the Blueshirts took on Saturday.
“The biggest thing is, when we play inspired hockey, the potential is limitless,” said Aaron Ward, who joined the team as a free agent after winning the Cup last season in Carolina. “The Rangers found an identity and built a base last season, but there are new components here now, and integrating them doesn’t just happen overnight.
“Shanny put it best when he said, if you look around the league, there are maybe four teams truly happy with their direction and the rest are trying to find themselves.” The Rangers may have found themselves Saturday night.
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A clarification is in order on a sentence appearing in this space yesterday. In writing that Wayne Gretzky could be behind the bench on Broadway next season, the intent was to indicate the Coyotes would be visiting the Garden in 2007-08 for the first time since he took the job in Phoenix, and not that No. 99 might be coaching the Rangers.
Colton Orr played four shifts for a total of 4:14 on Saturday. . . . Marcel Hossa, who got 7:52 of ice, is pointless and minus-7 on the season. . . . Tom Renney was full of praise for Sandis Ozolinsh, who was solid against the Coyotes. “He’s a good example for all of us,” said the head coach.