One year ago, two mornings after Christmas 2017, Chris Kreider woke up with a right arm that was numb. This developed after a couple of weeks in which the 26-year-old had felt fatigued and been coughing up blood.
So on this one-year Dec. 27 anniversary, what was the first thing that Kreider did upon awakening?
“Shook my right arm, felt fine, went, ‘OK, we’re good,’ ” the Rangers’ alternate captain told The Post before Thursday’s 4-3 Garden overtime defeat to Columbus. “First thing I thought? ‘Alive!’”
Alive, thriving and able to score two goals one year to the day after physicians diagnosed a blood clot in Kreider’s right arm when he left his team’s match at the Garden against the Caps following the first period during which the arm had doubled to nearly twice its normal size. A week later, Kreider underwent rib-resection surgery to correct the issue. Two months later, he was back on the ice.
“Something like this happens and you get time to think about things and about putting everything into perspective,” Kreider said. “I know that sounds like a cliché, but a year later, I feel exactly the same way as when I was going through it. It’s not like I’ve forgotten.
“If I’m different, I’m different for the better.”
It isn’t as if the health scare transformed Kreider from Mr. Potter into George Bailey. The Massachusetts native has been among the most compassionate individuals in the room since bursting onto the scene during the 2012 playoffs shortly after helping Boston College win the NCAA championship as a junior. But now, he is taking time to smell the roses.
“It’s hard to appreciate where you are when you get to this league,” said Kreider, who has adjusted his diet but is not on any related medication. “You get so caught up in the maze of the wins and losses that you can forget how hard it was to make it, how much discipline and character and work it takes to get to this league.
“It takes an ultra-competitive athlete to be able to make it to the NHL, so the focus is on the day-to-day results, but you have to be able to take a step back and appreciate the big picture, too.”
In the big hockey picture, Kreider is having the most productive season of his career, leading the Rangers with 19 goals — eight more than runner-up Mika Zibanejad — and on pace to shatter his single-year high of 28 that he recorded in 2016-17. No, you do not see Kreider delivering punishing checks all over the ice, he is not wired that way, but he has elevated his consistency both on the power play, where he is the designated net-presence, and at even-strength, where he has evolved into a sharpshooter.
Indeed, after scoring on a power-play deflection and on a wrist shot from the high slot, Kreider has an 18.4 shooting percentage on 103 shots as compared to 13.6 percent the previous two seasons. The volume of attempts is not dramatically different — 4.25 per game as opposed to 4.16 per the previous two seasons — but his conversion rate most certainly stands as a stark contrast.
“I don’t even want to know what it is,” said Kreider, who had notorious finishing issues against LA in the 2015 final that carried over into at least the following season, when he missed penalty shots in consecutive games. “But I have developed more confidence. That comes with experience. I have a changed mindset. I definitely want the puck on my stick.”
The Rangers have won one of their past seven (1-2-4) and three of their past 14 (3-6-5) as they sink to the NHL’s nether regions, just six points out of last place overall. But as most of the Blueshirts are waning, Kreider is peaking with five goals in his past five games.
One year later. One year after his hockey career was but an afterthought for the New Englander lying in a hospital bed, taking a battery of medical tests, he is at the top of his game.
“I think Kreids has had a really good season, and boy, his play of late has been really good,” David Quinn said. “You’ve been seeing his bursts of speed more consistently. When he plays with that pace, he takes his brain out of it and he just plays with hockey instincts. And he’s got great hockey instincts.”
In two months at the Feb. 25 trade deadline, contenders are expected to come after Kreider, who has one year at $4.625 million remaining on his contract. Unless management gets either a guaranteed top-five draft selection or a young top-pair righty defenseman back, the Rangers should rely on their instincts, just say no and be thankful for what they have.