The situation wasn’t particularly ideal for a publicly traded Rangers team when Las Vegas’ Pavel Dorofeev got hit in the head by Jacob Trouba’s elbow in a matchup late in the second period at the Garden on Jan. 26.
The captain, who was not penalized for the play, was given a two-game suspension by the Ministry of Player Safety, and was suspended for the club’s Jan. 27 game in Ottawa and the Avalanche team at the Garden, which bridged the entire game. He missed the Monday game. Star break.
Trouba’s absence in the first period was compounded by the fact that Ryan Lindgren also sat out the first period of the previous night’s game against Las Vegas with an upper-body issue.
That meant the Blueshirts, who had gone 3-6-2 in their previous 11 games, were missing two of their top four defensemen.
Zach Jones, who was a healthy scratch in seven of the last eight contests, 18 of the last 20 and 34 times all season, stepped into the breakthrough. Stepping into that breakthrough was Connor McKee, who was recalled from the AHL Wolfpack for his first game as a Ranger after signing as a free agent in the summer.
Braden Schneider, the mainstay on the right side of the third pair, stepped into the gap and moved into the top four along with matchup pair Quandre Miller.
McKee led the Blueshirts against the Senators with his play alongside Adam Fox and the energy he injected into his team when he accepted Brady Tkachuk’s challenge to drop his gloves after tying Tim Stutzle in the second period. He contributed to the 7-2 victory. .
Leading 2-0 at the time, the Blueshirts scored three goals in a span of five minutes with McKee and Tkachuk in the box. The 27-year-old, who played 16 minutes, 27 seconds while posting a plus-1 rating, was awarded a Broadway hat for his contributions and was immediately returned to Hartford.
Jones scored the winning goal in an explosive 14 minutes, 12 seconds on the ice, the fifth-longest time on ice this season. Paired again with Erik Gustafsson on Monday, Jones clocked a season-high 18:07, totaling 25:33 over the two games, recording two goals and no runs.
The 22-year-old Schneider, entering his third season, has been paired for most of this year, as he was primarily paired with Ben Harper in the third pair last year and Patrick Nemeth and Justin Braun in 2019. He is paired with Gustafsson in the third pair. He was promoted from the Wolfpack in the middle of the 2021-22 season and is in his third group.
The right-hander is locked in at No. 3 on the right-side depth chart behind Fox and Trouba, and looks like he’ll be there for a while. Nils Lundqvist saw that team’s top four in turmoil (perhaps even a top six blockade, including Schneider) and requested a trade.
Schneider doesn’t have as much physical ability as he’s been given credit for, but he’s been somewhat protected this year by head coach Peter Laviolette, just as his former NHL bench boss Gerard Gallant was. Schneider averaged 15 minutes, 29 seconds on ice as a rookie, 15 minutes, 43 seconds in his sophomore year and 14 minutes, 52 seconds this year leading up to the game in Ottawa.
But Schneider skated with Miller in the Rangers’ matchup pairing with the Stutzle-Tkachuk-Claude Giroux unit, posting a season-high 20 minutes, 54 seconds and 19 minutes, 41 seconds against the Avalanche. He recorded the second-longest time on ice. . His average increased to 15:05 per game. No. 4, who took on more responsibility, seemed to become more proactive.
Not only did the Blueshirts win their final two games (a 10-day span), they also benefited from a roster that put in impressive performances under stressful conditions. That will pay off for the rest of the season.
Schneider returned to his spot on Gustafsson’s right side following Trouba’s return, and Jones returned to his regular clothes for Wednesday’s game against the Garden, a Lightning team that was 8-1 in its past nine games. Natural order has been restored.
In net, however, Jonathan Quick made his second start in three days, backed up by Igor Shesterkin. guess what? Kevin Weeks started the final game following the 2006 Olympic hiatus and the first two games after the hiatus, with gold medal winner Henrik Lundqvist in the background.
It wasn’t a goalie debate then, and it’s not a goalie debate now.
