Rangers defenseman Dan Boyle is just happy to contribute to his new team

It was a night of reunions during the Rangers' 4-3 loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning in Florida on Wednesday night.

There was Martin St. Louis, who was held without a shot or point in his return to Tampa. There was former Rangers captain Ryan Callahan, who scored twice against his old team for the second time in 10 days.

Little noticed in this narrative was 38-year-old Rangers defenseman Dan Boyle, who played for the Lightning from 2001-02 to 2007-08 and was part of Tampa Bay's Stanley Cup-winning squad in 2003-04.

There was no video-board tribute for Boyle (or game-long booing), as there was for St. Louis. Boyle, who suffered a broken hand in the season opener on Oct. 9, was happy to toil in relative anonymity.

Boyle also was happy to make his first recordable offensive contribution to his new team. In only his seventh game as a Ranger, Boyle picked up his first point with a power-play goal in the first period.

Boyle was a plus-two in a game-high 24:49 of ice time.

"I know the media likes to talk about personal points, goals and assists," Boyle said. "For me, at my age, I don't really care about that too much anymore. My goal is to leave my mark out on the ice, make something happen. Whether I get goals or assists, that's not really as important to me as it was when I was 20 years old. I'm just looking to help out both offensively and defensively. Obviously, putting a power-play goal in, helping our power play, I thought gave us a little jump there for a little while."

The goal gave the Rangers a 2-1 lead, but Callahan scored the next two goals to lead Tampa Bay to its second straight victory over the Rangers. The teams meet again on Monday at the Garden.

"They're a good team," Rangers coach Alain Vigneault said. "In my estimation, they're probably one of the best teams in the NHL. We were ready for this game. Guys knew what to expect. They made a couple more plays offensively and defensively than we did, and at the end of the night, that was the difference."

The Rangers, who play at Philadelphia on Friday and host the Flyers on Saturday afternoon, felt they performed much better than in their 5-1 loss to Tampa Bay at the Garden on Nov. 17.

"Honestly, I thought we played pretty well," goalie Henrik Lundqvist said. "It was just they got going on their power play. They felt really good the way they were moving the puck. Maybe we made it too easy for them to get what they were looking for.

"Even though we didn't create that many chances in the first two periods [11 shots], I felt like we were more in control this time than the last time we played them. We worked really hard, so in the end we came pretty close."

By Anthony Rieber

anthony.rieber@newsday.comAnthonyRieber

Anthony Rieber covers baseball, as well as the NFL, NBA and NHL. He has worked at Newsday since Aug. 31, 1998, and has been in his current position since July 5, 2004.