This column originally ran on my blog on May 20, 2013.

Photo by Elise Amendola/The Associated Press

For the past 24 hours, the internal scene in my head has been a nearly non-stop highlight reel of Torey Krug in the first two games of the Boston Bruins’ second-round series with the New York Rangers, only interrupted by flashes of coffee, work, screaming cars and maybe the stray guitar solo from my iPod.

I keep replaying the scene where Krug catches a pass in the slot, adjusts himself by pushing the puck through his own skates and beats Henrik Lundqvist with a shot through the five-hole. I then flash to Krug, again with his skate, keeping the offensive momentum at the blue line by keeping a puck in the zone and firing off another shot on Lundqvist, which led to a rebound and a Gregory Campbell goal.

The game before that, Krug, pressed into action by Boston thanks to injuries to three veteran defenseman, tied a game on a slap shot from the blue line in the second period. He’s already running the second power play unit, and with more than 12 minutes on the ice, is playing much more than past fill-ins have (I can remember Shane Hnidy not getting more than three or four minutes in the few games he was pressed into action in the Bruins’ run in 2011). And they’ve won both games in the series.

All this is to say that I can’t remember a hockey player coming seemingly from nowhere and having this big an impact this quickly, at least outside of the goal. Last season, the Bruins were undone by Braden Holtby, fresh from the AHL and called up by Washington thanks to two injured goaltenders. There’s historic precedent for goalies popping up and dominating a playoff series — Ken Dryden most famously for Montreal in 1971, Patrick Roy in the Canadiens’ 1986 run, Martin Brodeur nabbing Chris Terreri’s starting job in New Jersey in 1994, and on and on.

But defensemen don’t do this. Certainly, undrafted defensemen signed out of college aren’t typically given a chance to have this kind of impact on an NHL level. They’re signed based on their work ethic and maturity, and they’re paid to provide depth to an organization that prays they never have to call their number

Alas, down went Andrew Ference, then Wade Redden, then Dennis Seidenberg, so here are the Bruins, first calling on 19-year-old phenom Dougie Hamilton, then rookie Matt Bartkowski, then Krug. Hamilton was a first-round pick and had a spot in the lineup for most of the season. Bartkowski has put in his time in the AHL and is signed to a one-way contract next season. Meanwhile, Krug has outplayed both of his fellow rookies and, arguably, Ference and Redden. He has anchored the power play in Providence most of this season, and he’s just taken that confidence up to the NHL and into the pressure of the Stanley Cup playoffs like it’s nothing.

It’s easy (and understandable) to forget that two games means almost nothing in the long run. Krug could be an All-Star or a career minor leaguer or something else entirely, and there’s no way to tell based off of two games.

But two games do matter, especially in the playoffs. And what Krug has done won’t be undone. My memory of watching The Fours explode during Game 2 when he scored one goal, then cheer in awe as he kick-passed the puck to himself before the Campbell goal, is as real as it gets. And the wins are permanent.

I don’t know what the future has in store for Torey Krug, obviously. But I know what happened. And I’ve never seen anything quite like it.