The David Quinn era starts for real now

PHILADELPHIA — David Quinn stood on the precipice Thursday night of beginning his journey as Rangers head coach, with the final preseason game a sleepy 4-2 win over the Flyers. The regular-season opener was exactly a week away, Oct. 4 when the Blueshirts play host to the Predators.

It was a coincidence Quinn stood in the same building, in the exact spot outside the visitors’ locker room, in front of the same hanging blue curtain with the Rangers logo, where Alain Vigneault made his last-ditch effort to speak his mind and save his job. That was April 7 at Wells Fargo Center, the final game of the season and the final one Vigneault coached before he was officially fired hours later, replaced by Quinn nearly two months later.

“I’ve really been happy with the way things have gone,” Quinn said before his team got power-play goals from Vinni Lettieri and Vlad Namestnikov and a nice 26-save performance from goalie Alexandar Georgiev that pretty well locked up his role as Henrik Lundqvist’s backup. “We continue to stress the ‘we’ thing. There’s a good feeling for sure, but when things get real next Thursday, it’s a little different.”

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It’s different because the results start to matter. And it happens that the man that Quinn replaced had quite a run of good results — one trip to the Stanley Cup final, two more to the Eastern Conference final, along with a Presidents’ Trophy. Quinn is fully aware of the history, but he also is aware the Rangers are in a far different place as a team than they were over the previous half-decade.

“I think whenever there is a coaching change, there are a lot of things that are new — but it doesn’t mean better,” Quinn said. “AV had a lot of success here, won a lot of playoff games, a lot of hockey games. Were just in a different situation than we were five years ago.

“There was definitely things that we’re doing probably differently than what he was doing because we’re a different team. Things are different, but it’s not because things weren’t done the right way before. It’s just the circumstances.”

The Blueshirts are now young and skilled, which is exactly what general manager Jeff Gorton wanted when this rebuilding process began in earnest with the letter sent to fans in February. That was followed by a sell-off of assets, the firing of Vigneault and finally the hiring of Quinn out of Boston University.

Despite the Rangers being much younger, much of their success is still going to rely on the play of 36-year-old Lundqvist. His preseason work was completed with the full game he played against the Islanders at the Garden on Wednesday night, and Quinn has been nothing but impressed with the player who has voluntarily chosen to stick it out through the rebuilding rather than chase that elusive Stanley Cup somewhere else.

“I think he’s in a great spot, physically and mentally,” Quinn said.

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As for the workload, Quinn couldn’t avoid his Boston roots with a football analogy.

“Why can’t he be the Tom Brady of goalies?” Quinn said of the Patriots’ 41-year-old quarterback. “He keeps himself in incredible shape, he’s an incredible competitor. He’s shown me no signs of someone who can’t handle a No. 1 workload.”

There are surely going to be bumps in the road for Quinn in his first run as a NHL head coach, especially with the young players put in important roles in front of Lundqvist. But finally, in the same place where Vigneault’s tenure ended, Quinn’s exhibition season came to a close and his time running the Blueshirts started for real.

“You’re not going to play 82 great games, but can you manage to survive when you’re having an off night? One of the things Hank and I talked about, we’ve got some structure in place, and when you’re not playing great, sometimes you can rely on your structure to give yourself a chance,” Quinn said. “Hopefully that’s a point we can get to.”

The Rangers made a few cuts, sending Gabriel Fountaine, Tim Gettinger, John Gilmour and Ryan Gropp to training camp with AHL Hartford. Bobby Butler and Drew Melanson were released from their respective tryouts and also went to Hartford.

The cuts left the Rangers with 38 players in camp, likely to be cut down close to the 23-man roster by Friday.