By the Rangers locking up home-ice advantage for the first round of the playoffs with Thursday night's 2-1 squeaker of a win over the Sabres at the Garden, their lineup for Saturday's regular-season finale in Montreal is up in the air.
First on their possible rest list would be goalie Henrik Lundqvist, who has a sordid track record in the Bell Center and has started five games in a row, as well as 19 of the last 21 going back to March 1.
Backup Cam Talbot last played on March 30 in Edmonton.
"I've already made up my mind on who I'm going to play depending on how important the game is," said coach Alain Vigneault before he knew the Flyers lost, 4-2, to the Lightning, thus locking up the Rangers' home ice. "I haven't told my goalie yet, so I'm going to wait until I see him first."
The Rangers have played the past four games without No. 1 defenseman Ryan McDonagh, suffering from a left-shoulder injury. Vigneault had been debating the merits of playing him before the postseason, and the plan was for McDonagh to skate by himself on Friday while the team doesn't practice and flies to Montreal in the afternoon.
"He skated real hard the last couple days, we wanted to focus [Thursday] on doing off-ice activities for him," Vigneault said in the morning. "He's going to skate [Friday] and we'll decide Saturday."
Originally, Vigneault had said he wanted McDonagh to get a practice in with contact before playing, but when asked if the current plan was enough for him to be ready, Vigneault changed his tune.
"For him, yes," he said.
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Vigneault and the Rangers are not unique in their withholding of injury information at this time of year, but what was rare was the coach giving some insight into why.
"If somebody's got an injury, and upper-body injury, it would be safe to say that the opposition knows that and they would tell their players, 'Let's make sure we finish our checks on him' — not that you want to hurt," Vigneault said. "Or if somebody has a leg injury, they might be having a tough time skating, so let's challenge him more on that side."
And even if Vigneault admitted, "Everything comes out at some point," he still thinks the less information volunteered, the better.
"Usually come playoff time," he said, "guys are usually tight-lipped."
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Vigneault continued to be impressed with forward Jesper Fast, who played in his second straight game since being called up from AHL Hartford and recorded a team-high five hits in 12:00.
"He's played well, very smart player and goes on the ice and plays to his strengths," Vigneault said. "He's much more physical than a lot people think. He plays the body every opportunity he gets, so he's going to be a help for us."
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