Originally, the Swedish hockey players were supposed to scatter, each to his own destination, after the Olympics in Turin, Italy, but when the team won the gold medal on Sunday, the travel plans changed.
"We were told to get us to Stockholm, no matter what," Henrik Lundqvist was saying with a smile. "It was a great day. We arrived Monday afternoon, had a bus into the city, all the people were there, we had a nice dinner and a nice party after that."
But as Lundqvist, the 23-year-old Swedish goaltender, put his luggage through a metal detector on arrival at the Stockholm airport, a customs inspector said: "What do you have in that bag? It looks like metal."
PHOTO: EPA
In the bag, of course, was an Olympic gold medal, which the customs inspector already knew. Lundqvist wore the medal on a red ribbon Tuesday night, when he did television interviews and posed for photos before the Rangers' Cheering for Children charity party at Madison Square Garden after arriving from Stockholm.
"At customs here," he said, alluding to Kennedy Airport, "nothing happened."
But now, as he sat with reporters at a nearby table, he took off the medal.
"My neck was red yesterday from wearing it," he said. "It's pretty heavy."
Not as heavy as Lundqvist's responsibility as an Olympic goaltender, and not as heavy as the expectations for him now as the Rangers resume their quest for the Stanley Cup playoffs after the embarrassment of not having qualified in seven consecutive seasons. At 35-15-8, the Rangers are fifth overall in the NHL and lead the Atlantic Division. Not that Lundqvist seems concerned about those expectations.
"It's been a great year so far," he said. "I hope for an even better spring. I'm excited to be here. I love to play the game over here."
With a lock of his black hair occasionally slipping over his eyes, Lundqvist appeared as cool as a goaltender must be when the puck and all those skaters and sticks are flying around him in a big game, as cool as he appeared in Sweden's tense 3-2 victory over Finland in the gold-medal game.
"I'm so relaxed now," he said, "but I feel very excited to be back in New York with the Rangers."
His 5-1 won-lost record and 2.33 goals against average in the Olympics were not aberrations. With a 17-3-3 record for the Rangers, he leads all NHL goalies with a .927 save average and is tied for second with a 2.09 goals against average. Since NHL players became eligible for the Olympics in 1998, the only other gold-medal goaltenders were two of the best: Martin Brodeur with Canada in 2002 and Dominik Hasek with the Czech Republic in 1998.
"He nailed the big one," Rangers coach Tom Renney said. "The question was, can he rise to the big game? And he did."
For Henrik Lundqvist, known as Hank to his teammates, the big games have only begun. As big as the Olympics were, the Stanley Cup, at least in the context of the NHL is bigger. But he and the Rangers know that if he rose to the occasion in the Olympics, he's capable of rising to it in the Stanley Cup playoffs.
"We believe," Renney said, "we've got goaltending that can seal the deal."
Not since Mike Richter was at his best more than a decade ago, notably in the Rangers' 1994 Cup victory that ended a 54-year famine, has the team had this good a goaltender. And there's a 1994 omen involved. Four months before Mark Messier, Brian Leetch and Richter led the Rangers to that Cup celebration, Sweden's hockey team won the Olympic gold medal.
"That year I was just excited that Sweden won," Lundqvist said. "To someday play in the Olympics was a goal I had."
In Turin, he not only played in the Olympics, he was a teammate of three players who were his idols while growing up -- some say the three best hockey players in Swedish history -- center Peter Forsberg (Philadelphia Flyers), center Mats Sundin (Toronto Maple Leafs) and defenseman Nicklas Lindstrom (Detroit Red Wings). When the final buzzer sounded Sunday, they and the rest of the Swedish team surrounded Lundqvist, hugged him and patted him on the helmet.
"As time goes by, you realize how tough it is to win the Olympics," Lundqvist said. "If you don't win, it's four more years. Living the dream. Living the dream."
But now there's another dream, the eternal dream of Ranger rooters: to win another Stanley Cup. To win it this year is probably too much to ask.Then again, the Rangers have a goaltender who, like Brodeur and Hasek, was on an Olympic gold-medal team.
And if Brodeur and Hasek can help win both the Olympics and a Stanley Cup, then maybe Henrik Lundqvist can, too.
NHL roundup
Long Island native Christopher Higgins scored two goals to help the Montreal Canadiens beat the New York Islanders 5-3 on Tuesday in the first game for both teams since the Olympic break.
Higgins made it 3-0 with 42 seconds left in the second period, firing a wrist shot past goalie Garth Snow on a rush down the left wing, and beat U.S. Olympian Rick DiPietro with a high wrist shot at 8:34 of the third.
Cristobal Huet, making his seventh straight start in goal for the Canadiens with Jose Theodore sidelined by a broken right heel, made 32 saves for the victory in Montreal's first game on a six-game, 10-day trip.
Craig Rivet, rookie Alexander Perezhogin and Michael Ryder had power-play goals for Montreal.
Miroslav Satan scored twice and Mark Parrish added a goal for the Islanders.
Panthers 8, Lightning 2
At Tampa, Florida, Chris Gratton, Olli Jokinen and Joe Nieuwendyk each had two goals to help Florida trounce Tampa Bay.
Nieuwendyk and Jokinen also had an assist for three-point games. Martin Gelinas and Joel Kwiatkowski had the other Florida goals, while Roberto Luongo made 32 saves.
Vincent Lecavalier and Ryan Craig scored for Tampa Bay. John Grahame was pulled at 3:35 of the second after allowing four goals on 13 shots.
Tampa Bay went 11-3-1 over its last 15 games before the Olympic break. Florida was 6-6-3 over the same stretch.
Capitals 5, Maple Leafs 3
At Toronto, Matt Pettinger scored twice and Washington beat Toronto to end a four-game losing streak.
Rookie sensation Alex Ovechkin, Brian Willsie and Ben Clymer also scored for the Capitals, who improved to 3-1 against Toronto. Ovechkin has 37 goals.
Nik Antropov, Darcy Tucker and Chad Kilger scored for the Maple Leafs, who are in danger of missing the playoffs for the first time in coach Pat Quinn's seven-year tenure. Toronto fans loudly booed the Maple Leafs as the final buzzer sounded on their third straight loss. The Leafs are three points behind Montreal for the final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference.
Ed Belfour allowed five goals on 27 shots, including two weak goals in the first minutes of the game. Fans jeered the 40-year-old after he made a couple of easy saves after that.
Canucks 2, Flames 1
At Calgary, Alberta, Markus Naslund and Anson Carter scored nine seconds apart in the second period to help move the Vancouver into a first-place tie with Calgary atop the Northwest Division.
Vancouver (34-21-5) has won three straight against its division rival after losing the first four meetings of the season. The Canucks continue a three-game road trip Thursday night in Nashville.
Robyn Regehr gave Calgary a 1-0 lead in the first period. The Canucks answered with two goals in the second period.
At 18:20, Steve McCarthy's pass to Brendan Morrison at the Flames blue-line caught Calgary on a line change. Morrison then chipped the puck to Naslund, who broke in alone and fired a high shot past Miikka Kiprusoff.
Just nine seconds later, Bryan Allen and Olympic goal medallist Daniel Sedin combined to spring Carter for his 22nd of the year.
Avalanche 4, Wild 2
At Denver, Milan Hejduk had a goal and an assist and David Aebischer stopped 33 shots and continued his mastery of Minnesota.
Aebischer improved to 4-0 against the Wild this year and has allowed only six goals in those games. He is 9-2-0 against Minnesota in his career.
Rob Blake, Brad May and Andrew Brunette had goals. Joe Sakic added three assists for the Avalanche.
Pierre-Marc Bouchard and Marian Gaborik had power play goals for Minnesota as Jacques Lemaire failed to earn his 400th coaching win.
Sharks 5, Red Wings 1
At San Jose, California, Joe Thornton had a goal and three assists and Jonathan Cheechoo also scored one of San Jose's franchise-record five power play goals as the Sharks beat the depleted Detroit.
Nils Ekman, Christian Ehrhoff and Patrick Marleau also scored for the Sharks, who won their fourth straight game.
Brett Lebda scored for the Red Wings, who had their six-game winning streak stopped.
With Swedish gold-medalists Nicklas Lidstrom, Mikael Samuelsson, Henrik Zetterberg and Tomas Holmstrom getting an extra day off, the Red Wings relied on a makeshift lineup without much success. Detroit had killed off 45 of its last 47 penalties entering the contest, and 73 of 78.
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