As the days ticked off in the preseason and the regular season opener against his old team, the Pittsburgh Penguins, approached, Rangers coach Mike Sullivan kept insisting he hadn’t given any thought to what it would be like to coach his first game with his new team against the team he coached for the last 10 years. He had enough problems to worry about with the Rangers, he kept saying.

“My focus has been on the New York Rangers,’’ Sullivan said at the Rangers’ morning skate on Tuesday, before the Blueshirts opened their Centennial season in special throwback jerseys at Madison Square Garden. “When I went home last night and I was thinking about today, and how we can put the best version of the New York Rangers on the ice, that's where my focus was – on our players, and the message that w

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