There was a bit of caution with Tanner Glass and his injury, because the Rangers had been down that road before.
Glass had taken a shot off the high part of his right ankle during Wednesday’s preseason finale in Boston, and it had hit him in the same spot where center Derek Stepan was hit last preseason, leading to Stepan breaking his leg during conditioning testing.
Yet Glass was luckier, having taken a MRI exam that showed no break. After a few days off the ice, he returned to practice Monday wearing just a small gel pad to limit the pain. The shot came from only 10 feet away and off the blade of Colin Miller, who just so happened to win the AHL’s competition for hardest shot last season.
“Just a bruise,” Glass said. “I knew it wasn’t broken.”
Glass is set to be a healthy scratch for the opener Wednesday night in Chicago, but the rugged winger still found his way onto the opening-night roster despite a large number of forwards fighting for only a few open spots.
“It’s a typical NHL camp — there always seems to be more guys than there are spots,” Glass said. “That’s how it goes.”
The Rangers cancelled their two-day trip to West Point on Friday, and it had nothing to do with the recent finding of Legionella — the bacteria that leads to Legionnaires’ disease — on the campus. The team cancelled the trip when weather forecasts predicted rain to start this week. With a lot of activities planned outside, they didn’t want to expose the players to cold rain and mud just before the season began.
Coach Alain Vigneault said he had no predetermined preference toward who would be the third-line center, and Oscar Lindberg earned the chance to start the season there.
“Prior to camp, we had talked about what the [AHL] Hartford guys had said, that he had become one of their best, two-way players,” Vigneault said. “Played with bite. Was good on the penalty killing. He came in a proved that he was there, so that’s why we’re giving him a chance.”
The way the lines shook out also moved perennial fourth-line center Dominic Moore to the wing, on a line with newly added pivot Jarret Stoll and right winger Jesper Fast.
“Since I’ve been here, Dom has been a player on one of our four lines, a very dependable player that has killed penalties for us,” Vigneault said. “Right now, I like the makeup of him on the left side.”
The healthy scratches for the opener are set to be Glass and Emerson Etem up front, and defenseman Dylan McIlrath.