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The Rangers were behind 3-1 in the Eastern Conference semifinal series and were losing Game 5 when Kreider scored a goal with 1:41 remaining in the third period to send it to overtime. Two nights later, he imprinted himself on Game 6 with two first-period goals as the Rangers won 4-3.

Forget Rick Nash. How do the Capitals stop Kreider?

“He’s an animal,” teammate J.T. Miller said. “He’s always shining in the playoffs. He’s just too strong and too fast and too big. When he wants to take it over like that, you can’t stop him.”

For Kreider, who is tied with Derick Brassard with a team-leading five goals this post-season, this is nothing new. He scored a career-best 21 goals in the regular season, but his college and pro careers have so far been defined by his post-season success.

In three years at Boston College, Kreider won three pressure-filled Beanpot tournaments — a bragging-rights tournament played between the four Boston-area universities. He scored the game-winning goal one year and was named the MVP another year. He was a member of two NCAA championship teams and the U.S. world junior championship club in 2010. His springtime success in New York has vaulted him to another level of fan devotion.

Nine days after he won the second NCAA title, Kreider joined the Rangers for the 2012 playoffs before even playing a regular-season game. He scored five goals in 18 games that year, including two game-winners. It was a whirlwind experience, said Kreider, who had jokingly told reporters that he was throwing up between periods.

“I think that first year I was kind of full of ignorance and naïve to the situation,” Kreider said. “I was put in a kind of a win-win situation. Just go out there and play. Not a whole lot of pressure. At the same time, if there’s anything to take away from those one-and-done games at the college level, as fun as they are and as much build-up as there is, it’s not fun if you don’t win.”

At six-foot-three and 226 pounds, Kreider seems to have a body and a playing style that is built specifically for the playoffs, when the games are more tightly checked and loosely officiated. He plays angry. And he has the strength to back it up. Type in Kreider’s name in YouTube and a video appears of him exploding out of waist-high water in a swimming pool, somehow managing to land feet first on the deck.