Being this shorthanded has buried lesser teams.
And there is no avoiding the fact the Rangers haven’t exactly been painting Picassos — as coach Alain Vigneault might say — over the past six weeks. But there also is no avoiding the fact that with the putrid-looking 4-2 win over the Sabres in Buffalo on Tuesday, the Blueshirts went to 13-6-1 since winger Rick Nash was hurt on Jan. 22 at Carolina. They were 2-1 while starting goalie Henrik Lundqvist suffered from neck spasms over the past few days, and also weathered the recent two-game absence of defenseman Marc Staal, whose game finally had been rounding into form before his back began to lock up.
Somehow, even with those three enormous pieces to the Rangers’ puzzle ailing, the Blueshirts have managed to solidify their spot in the standings. They still are three points in front of the hard-charging Islanders for second place in the Metropolitan Division, while their Brooklyn rivals continue to hold three games in hand.
But it seems the Rangers playing the type of game in which they take the two points and leave quickly out the backdoor is going to have to come to an end. They manage to defend late one-goal leads like no other team in the NHL, and they’re even better at it
when Lundqvist is in net.
Yet now they seem to be getting healthy again, and as much as two points are nice in
terms of trying to secure some home-ice advantage for the postseason, the biggest concern Vigneault has over these final 15 games of the regular season is the way in which his team is playing.
That, above all, has been concerning — a horrid stench masked by the perfume of victories.
“I agree with you,” Vigneault said Tuesday night when a questioner tried to stress the positive that they had found a way to win. “But there is also the process involved.”
All signs point to Vigneault having Lundqvist back between the pipes the next time his team plays, at Detroit on Saturday afternoon. Backup Antti Raanta had been solid in his three consecutive relief starts, and Magnus Hellberg was sent back to AHL Hartford on Wednesday after watching the past three games from the bench.
The team also sent rookie defenseman Brady Skjei back to Hartford after a solid one-game emergency appearance, which is partially a good sign for Staal’s return and partially a move to save money under the salary cap and possibly to give Skjei a chance to play in the Wolf Pack’s game on Friday night in Providence.
“When you get sent down, you want to work really hard to get back up here,” Skjei, 21, said after Tuesday’s game, his third time up with the big club this season, for a total of four games. “It obviously sucks the first hour or so, but then you just have to work and try to get back up here.”
It’s impossible to gauge whether Staal’s back spasms will act up in the coming weeks and months, but it’s good the Rangers had off on Wednesday and only an optional practice scheduled for Thursday. If Staal can play, how will his back affect his game? If he reverts to the level he was at during the beginning of the season, would the team be better served with Skjei in the lineup as a third-pair lefty?
“There is a chance here that we’re going to need [Skjei] down the stretch,” Vigneault said before Tuesday’s game.
After Skjei logged a solid 17:38 with five attempted shots, Vigneault added: “I thought he played well. We had him out towards the end, also. You can see that big body, skates well, moves the puck. So I’m very pleased with his progression. He came in and helped us.”
As rookie right-handed defenseman Dylan McIlrath (right kneecap) is now set to miss “a couple of weeks,” according to Vigneault, the roster the Rangers will play with at the most crucial time of the regular season and into the postseason is pretty well set. They have gotten through being significantly shorthanded, and it might not have been pretty, but it was effective.
Asked if he was going to throw the tape of Tuesday’s game into the garbage or use it as a teaching tool, Vigneault smiled.
“Have to give me couple of hours to think about that one,” he said jokingly, knowing that it doesn’t matter how that one looked, but it will if that kind of play continues.
