He was wearing a Red Sox jersey and his father’s Boston accent.

Perfect companions for a trip back home.

Back to Boston and the old Gahden. Where you leaned over the railing and talked and screamed like you were in one of the triple deck-ahs in Charlestown, Southie or the North End. Where you entered only after having pizza at Regina’s.

“Or maybe stop and get a hot dog at Joe & Nemo’s,” Tom Fitzgerald said.

You know? Right on the cornah across from the Gahden.

Cast your memory back, the Panther forward was asked. Back to three generations of Fitzgeralds going to watch Bruins games. Or going to see a parade downtown after Orr and Co., had won the 1970 Stanley Cup. Sure, Fitzgerald was only 2, “but I remember when Johnny Bucyk raised the Cup over his head Tommy nearly jumped out of my arms,” Fitzgerald’s father, Tom, recalled.

Or watching Ken Hodge, Terry O’Reilly … Steve Kasper.

“A great defensive forward,” Fitzgerald said of Kasper. “I remembah growing up and watching him because he did such a great job on [Wayne) Gretzky. Kasper vs. Gretzky. That was a big thing every time they played.”

In the town of Billerica, just outside Boston, Tom Fitzgerald is told of his son’s recollections. Of the treks to the Gahden, of Thanksgiving … of a guy named Kasper checking Gretzky.

The father, a longshoreman, laughs.

“And now look who’s playing against Gretzky,” he says.

ALWAYS A PEST

Fitzgerald vs. Gretzky.

The Great One vs. The Gnat.

Who better than Fitzgerald and linemates Jody Hull and Bill Lindsay to buzz around Gretzky this afternoon when the Panthers host the Rangers in Game 2 of the Eastern Conference quarterfinals? As former Panther Roger Neilson once said – as Mario Lemieux would agree – Fitzgerald is a gnat; always pestering, always there.

Others would shy away from drawing Gretzky as an assignment. Fitzgerald, as well as Hull and Lindsay, thrive on it.

“It fires up an individual,” Fitzgerald said.

And it frustrates his opponent.

Remember Lemieux in last year’s Eastern Conference Finals? Frustrated, unable to escape Fitzgerald and Lindsay?

“You two Pee-Wees, you two little tykes, get outta here,” he said.

Lemieux was having flashbacks to 1993, when Fitzgerald, then an Islander, helped eliminate the defending champion Penguins in a seven-game series.

“Fitzie drove Mario Lemieux nuts,” Panthers President Bill Torrey recalled. “Literally, nuts. His pursuit, his doggedness, was a major factor in us winning that series.”

He is simply always there whether he’s playing a regular shift or killing penalties. Even when the action stops, Fitzgerald is skating around … around … around … his opponent.

“And it doesn’t matter who it is,” Torrey said. “It doesn’t matter to him whether its Gretzky, Mario or someone else. He plays the same.”

Torrey should know since he has drafted Fitzgerald twice: Once in the 1993 Expansion Draft for the Panthers, and once in 1986 when Torrey, then general manager of the Islanders, took Fitzgerald in the first round (17th overall) of the entry draft.

“I saw him in high school [Austin Prep), and while he was never going to be a high-scoring, finesse-type player, he was straight away high energy, helter-skelter,” Torrey said. “And I remember that was a big step for us that year in the draft. We were taking a U.S.-born high school player as our No. 1 pick, something not frequently done then, and there was a lot of debate among our staff about whether to take him. But his energy was amazing.”

Energy to play hockey, “whenever he could,” Fitzgerald’s father recalled. “He played baseball … but he loved hockey.”

The father played, too. So did his cousin, Coyotes’ star Keith Tkachuk. But Fitzgerald was the local hero back in Billerica and Austin Prep.

“He had a very able supporting cast, most of whom went on to Division I colleges,” recalled Matt Miller, a teacher at Austin Prep for 29 years. “But Tommy was the star.”

But after being drafted, after attending Providence College for two years and then getting called up by the Islanders in 1989, Fitzgerald realized things were going to change.

“Once I got to college I struggled more scoring,” Fitzgerald recalled. “And when I got called up [by the Islanders), everything that was preached to me was defense, defense, defense. I remember Al Arbour telling me that you could play a long time in this league if you could play defense. If you scored 10 goals that was a bonus. I guess I listened to him.”

GIVE HIM THE SELKE

He remembers the first time he played against Gretzky, the Great One’s second year in Los Angeles.

“They matched my line against his and [Gretzky) crossed the blue line and drifted toward our defenseman,” Fitzgerald recalled. “I collided with the defenseman.”

That didn’t happen in Game 1 Thursday night. Fitzgerald, Lindsay and Hull were perfect against Gretzky. The Great One had five shots on net, but all were meaningless. Fitzgerald watched him, Lindsay cleanly knocked him over. Because, as Lindsay once said, “Some superstars don’t think they should be hit … so you hit them.”

Fitzgerald admits he never let Gretzky out of his sight.

“If he’s got the puck down low, it’s important to identify where he is,” Fitzgerald said. “If he’s behind the net you want to push him, pin him against the boards. You know, he’s so brilliant without the puck that you don’t want him to go to an open area, either. You just stay with him. But if I know where he is I’m going to watch the play because there’s no reason to stick to him. I’m not going to shadow him.”

And that, according to Torrey and Panther coach Doug MacLean, is one of the differences between Fitzgerald and Kasper.

“Kasper was a shadow, more on the defensive side of checking,” MacLean said. “But Tommy is more aggressive, in-your-face type of player. He’s more physical. He’ll hit you, whack you.”

Torrey calls Fitzgerald the perfect candidate for the Selke Trophy as the league’s top defensive forward.

“He’s what Kasper was, or Doug Jarvis or Bob Gainey when they were Canadiens,” Torrey said. “Outstanding cover forwards, penalty killers; smart forwards who can read the plays well.”

NOT ONE TO TALK

Nothing much will change this afternoon. Back in Billerica, outside Boston and the remains of the old Gahden, Fitzgerald’s father will sit down and watch his son skate across the television screen. In South Florida, inside Miami Arena, Fitzgerald will never be far from Gretzky.

And, according to Torrey, Fitzgerald will skate and check like every shift is his last because, “How many games in the four years we’ve been here has Tommy Fitzgerald not brought high energy to a game?” It’s that energy that drove Mario nuts, that led the Flyers’ Mikael Renberg to continually talk to Fitzgerald in last year’s conference semifinals.

So what of Gretzky? Has he responded to Fitzgerald’s checking?

“There was a shift [Thursday) where I cross-checked him on the arm pretty good, and I thought he might do something, but he doesn’t say a thing,” Fitzgerald said.

And does Fitzgerald?

“I’m not there to talk to him,” he said. “And who the hell am I to trash talk to him? He’s Wayne Gretzky. “I’m just Tom Fitzgerald.”