MONTREAL _ Chris Kreider, who's been slowed by the flu all week, spoke Thursday for the first time about the contract extension he signed with the Rangers on Monday.
"It's a thrill really," he said after the Rangers' morning skate prior to Thursday's game against the Canadiens. "This is the only team I've ever known, the only place I've really wanted to play; an organization, front office and a team that gave me an opportunity to live out my dream playing the NHL. So I'm just incredibly happy to be here."
Kreider, who said he was so sick this week that he probably shouldn't have played in Tuesday's 4-3 overtime win over the Islanders, had steadfastly denied all season long that he was thinking about his contract season. On Thursday, though, he admitted that keeping the contract out of his mind was "a little tough" in the final few days before the trade deadline, when his agent, Matt Keator, and Rangers GM Jeff Gorton began negotiations in earnest.
The Rangers would have traded Kreider before Monday's trade deadline if the sides didn't agree on a new deal, and the 28-year-old power forward was considered all season to be the top player most likely to be dealt before the deadline. But the two sides reached agreement on a deal Monday morning, when the Rangers agreed to give Kreider a seventh year and Kreider agreed to take an average salary of $6.5 million � less than the $7 million or more he likely would have earned had he made it to free agency.
Kreider said the fact that the team was in a heated battle to try and make the playoffs helped him keep his focus on the ice as negotiations went on and the trade deadline drew nearer.
"We had a big stretch of games, a big stretch of important games," he said. "So it was really easy to take one day at a time."
At no point, he said, did he ever imagine himself playing for another team.
"Maybe the position we're in helped me, and helped my mental makeup, and made it pretty much impossible to look at anything else," he said. "Because we've been in the thick of things."
