Rangers defenseman K’Andre Miller was tossed from Sunday night’s game against the Kings for spitting in Drew Doughty’s face.
The uncharacteristic act from Miller at 16:37 of the first period earned him a match penalty and put the Rangers in an even more precarious situation than at the start of the eventual 5-2 win over the Kings at the Garden.
During a scrum between the teams, Miller appeared to hock a loogie right in the Kings defenseman’s face. Miller was promptly ejected and left the Rangers with just five defensemen. The 23-year-old actually reached out to Doughty postgame to say it was not on purpose and that he felt bad about it, according to a source.
“I didn’t see nothing,” head coach Gerard Gallant said of the incident after the win. “Obviously, it happened, I’m not saying it didn’t happen. The kid feels bad about it, said it was an accident.”
The Rangers didn’t plan to play defenseman Braden Schneider or forward Ryan Carpenter to ensure they’re healthy and able to be sent to the minors in some variation in the coming days. That left the Rangers with just four available blueliners to play a majority of the game.
The purpose of all this is for the Rangers to accrue enough cap space to execute a trade for the Blackhawks’ Patrick Kane. A player cannot be sent to the minors if injured and the Rangers need to be able to send skaters down in order to obtain enough space to fit Kane in at 25 percent of his $10.5 million cap hit.
Despite losing Miller, the Rangers kept Schneider, who was sent to AHL Hartford after the game, on the bench for the entire game. Carpenter only logged a mere 13 seconds while making his way from the penalty box to the Rangers bench. Asked if the Rangers lost any more defensemen — or a forward like the brief scare when Mika Zibanejad went down — would he have played Schneider and/or Carpenter, Gallant said he didn’t think that would’ve happened.
Linesman Kilian McNamara (93) escorts New York Rangers’ K’Andre Miller (79) off the ice after Miller received a penalty during the first period. APThere’s an automatic review by NHL commissioner Gary Bettman on match penalties, so it’s possible Miller receives a suspension. Garnet Hathaway was suspended three games for spitting in a game in November 2019.
Ryan Lindgren was unavailable Sunday night due to the upper-body injury he suffered on a hard hit into the boards by the Capitals’ T.J. Oshie in the Rangers’ loss on Saturday. Gallant, who called Oshie’s hit “dirty,” said Lindgren is day-to-day and that he “doesn’t think it’s serious.” Lindgren was spotted after Saturday’s game with his arm in a sling.
As a result of Lindgren’s injury, defenseman Ben Harpur stepped into the lineup. Niko Mikkola skated next to Adam Fox, while Miller and Jacob Trouba remained intact until was thrown out of the game.
Igor Shesterkin started in back-to-back games for just the second time this season. … The Rangers also assigned William Lockwood, who was acquired along with a 2026 seven-round pick in the deal with the Canucks for Vitali Kravtsov, to Hartford.
