The Rangers aren't going to be foolish and expose Ryan McDonagh and his impaired left shoulder to the danger that awaits on the ice until he is healthy enough and the game is important enough to warrant his return.
But even if that will mean longer than a two-week rest, rehab and recuperation between the night he was injured in Vancouver on April 1, and the night he will make his return, most likely next Thursday at the Garden in Game 1 of the first round against either the Flyers or Blue Jackets, the opposition will be gunning for the Rangers' best player.
They will be gunning for McDonagh and for his left shoulder that was damaged to an unknown degree when he became the meat in the Canucks' Zack Kassian-Alexandre Burrows sandwich toward the end of that Blueshirts' victory in Vancouver.
The thing is, even as Alain Vigneault does everything possible to safeguard his players from harm by putting a full lid on injury information relayed through the media to the outside world, the coach is helpless in this case.
Because unless the Garden had been able to go all Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and scrub the memory of everyone who had seen McDonagh splattered into the boards that night, the horse — and yes, that would be the thoroughbred who wears No. 27 for the Rangers — was out of the barn the moment the defenseman skated to the bench with his left arm all but immobile.
Vigneault essentially forecast what McDonagh can expect when the coach explained the organization's policy of withholding injury information before Thursday's 2-1 victory at the Garden over the Sabres that wrapped up second place in the Metropolitan Division and first-round home ice.
"If somebody's got an upper body injury, it would be safe to say that the opposition knows that and they well tell their players, 'Let's make sure we finish our checks on him,' " Vigneault said. "Not that you want to hurt [him]," Vigneault said.
So, the puck will dumped into McDonagh's corner at every opportunity possible, you bet it will, and forecheckers will arrive with malice aforethought intending to nail the defenseman to the wall, and hey, if it's a little bit late, or heck, if it's a lot late, the Flyers or Blue Jackets will be happy to pay a penance of two or five minutes in the box.
The Blueshirts could use an influx of mean-edged physical forwards capable of wearing down the defense over the course of a series in which every blow in Game 1 factors into the equation by Games 5, 6 and 7, and they could use defensemen capable or laying the lumber (or composite) on opponents who will plan for a two-week vacation in Henrik Lundqvist's crease.
But no makeover is scheduled for between now and the opener in which the Rangers will begin the dance with the ones who brung them. What Brad Richards says they will need to discourage assaults on McDonagh is, "a pack mentality."
"First of all, Mac is going to be healthy when he comes back, so that's not a worry," the alternate captain told The Post. "But if it's a matter of strategy to go after him, we're going to have to have a pack mentality so that if one guy goes in to respond to a hit, everybody will go.
"You can't prevent a guy from being hit, but we can be there for support. And if they take penalties, then we have to score on the power play. That's always the best answer."
McDonagh isn't Brian Leetch but he is to these Rangers what No. 2 was to his Blueshirts for so many years. And late in Game 2 of the 1997 Cup semifinals in Philadelphia when Leetch went to the play the puck in the corner with the Rangers holding a one-goal lead, he was splattered into the boards by Trent Klatt…with Leetch's partner, Jeff Beukeboom, as imposing a shotgun rider could be on a first defense pair, five feet away and helpless to stop it.
Leetch's right wrist, injured in the collision, was ruined. And after surviving the final 6:08 to secure the Game 2 victory, the Rangers did not win again and went out in five.
It is Rangers' history — that the Flyers or Blue Jackets will be anxious to repeat. You can bet that the Blueshirts' pack mentality will be challenged, and often. McDonagh might want to keep an elbow up.
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