You think you’re prepared for it, but boy it is eerie,” Rangers coach David Quinn said. “You know, we knew there weren’t going to be fans.

There was no ritual “Potvin Sucks!” chant, no Liam Neeson or Susan Sarandon celebrity sighting, and for the first Opening Night since 2006, there was no Henrik Lundqvist in net. The reverberating roar of full-throated New Yorkers wasn’t supposed to be replaced by the dull hum of fake crowd noise. That wasn’t how this moment, the NHL debut that he’d spent his first 18 years on this planet chasing, felt in his dreams. Lafreniere just saluted the World’s Most Famous Empty Arena, where the Garden faithful was substituted by soulless blue tarps blanketing the lower bowl.

He slid over to fellow Quebecois Julien Gauthier at centre ice, the only player introduced before him, and they shrugged - surely at the surreality of the moment.

NEW YORK - Alexis Lafreniere stepped out of the tunnel and skated onto the pristine Madison Square Garden ice for pre-game introductions and raised his stick high.

Silver linings a tor com original