#Rangers bringing sense of urgency to NHL playoff tuneup

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esper Fast, Ryan Strome and Jacob Trouba skate during practice.

Nick Homler/NY Rangers

The NHL will get its first taste of competitive play in over four months with three consecutive days of exhibition games this week. For Rangers forward Ryan Strome — and every other player in the league, he assumes — figuring out how to play competitively without straining himself is the ultimate concern going into Wednesday’s tuneup game with the Islanders.

“It’s something that the players are kind of wondering themselves and how the games are going to go,” Strome said on a Zoom call following the Rangers first practice in Toronto on Monday. “At the end of the day, you get a one-game tuneup before the Stanley Cup playoffs, so I think the only way to really approach it is to have a game-like mentality.

“I can’t imagine that guys are going to get overused, minutes-wise and stuff like that, but I think it’s important that you try to feel the game experience as much as you can because it’s pretty hard to just jump into a playoff-like game.”

Strome, whose last playoff run was with the Islanders during the 2015-16 season, expects the coaching staff to have a pulse on managing minutes Wednesday. However, he believes his teammates know not to overdo it.

The most important aspect of the exhibition matchup, according to Strome, will be getting acclimated to the new game-day schedule, playing in front of no fans and using it to the Rangers’ advantage by making the necessary adjustments before games begin to count come Saturday.

“Definitely a different feel, but at the end of the day, I think once the puck drops the hockey is the same,” he said.

After arriving in the Toronto bubble Sunday night, coach David Quinn said it’s felt like a usual road trip, except for the fact that Wednesday will be the team’s first meaningful hockey game since March. With that, Quinn is hoping to use the exhibition game as a “barometer.”

“We think we’re making progress. We think we’re close to where we need to be but we’re going to find out,” he said. “It’s very difficult to tell right now and I would guarantee you the 23 other teams will tell you the same thing. It’s difficult to try to emulate real-game situations in your practices and scrimmages, you try to get as close to it as possible.

“There’s nothing like lining up against something that’s not on your team and seeing an unfamiliar face. We’re going to find out an awful lot of things on Wednesday.”

The one thing Quinn said he hopes to see out of his team Wednesday is a sense of urgency and an undeniable effort. Without effort, Quinn said, everything else won’t matter. He also felt as though the exhibition schedule was necessary for all teams to get used to the new fan-less environment.

It helps that each NHL player is in the same boat: about to compete in a game unlike anything anyone has likely experienced before. It’ll be a test of each team’s mindset and approach to the very start of this bizarre 24-team postseason tournament.

“I want to make sure that they understand that we’re continuing to build toward Saturday,” Quinn said. “It’s another opportunity to get better and put ourselves in a position to have success starting on Saturday.”