So the Rangers’ second-half run to secure a playoff spot will open without Rick Nash, who remains sidelined for the foreseeable future with the left-leg bone bruise that kept the club’s first-line winger out of the final two games before the All-Star break.
“Rick had a CT scan in the morning that didn’t show [a break],” coach Alain Vigneault, whose club resumes play Tuesday night in New Jersey, said following Monday’s practice. “It’s a bad bone bruise that’s taking longer to heal than our medical group thought it would.
“He’s still in pain and having a tough time walking.”
Nash lost an edge racing to get back to defend against an odd-man rush and careened into the boards 30 seconds into the third period of the Rangers’ 4-1 victory in Carolina on Jan. 22, his left leg taking the brunt of the contact. No. 61 returned at the 9:00 mark, but left for good nine seconds after blocking a Justin Faulk shot with the same leg at 12:21. It is unclear which mishap was responsible for the injury.
The winger, who has 33 points (12 goals, 21 assists) in 45 games, spent part of the All-Star break in Florida before returning to New York for treatment at the end of last week.
“He’s going to be badly missed, but injuries happen,” Derek Stepan said. “Good teams — great teams — find ways to have guys step into roles. We have to find the way to fill a big hole up front.”
The Blueshirts’ 27-17-5 record at the end of their first-half roller-coaster ride is good, but hardly great. They’ve yet to play anything remotely resembling great hockey.
And though they stand second in the Metropolitan Division (and seventh-overall in a league filled with mediocrity), the Rangers also are only four points clear of the Devils for a playoff spot, while holding a game in hand on New Jersey.
But if Nash’s absence might prove an impediment, Stepan’s return to complete hockey health of mind and body could be a critical factor in filling that hole left by No. 61.
For the 1A/1B center, who will skate between Chris Kreider and Mats Zuccarello for the third straight game, acknowledged Monday that he hadn’t been right for weeks after returning well ahead of projections from the broken ribs he suffered Black Friday in Boston.
“I probably came back — I was medically cleared, but game-condition-wise, and mentally, I wasn’t quite there. I was protecting my ribs,” said Stepan, who returned after only a three-week absence from the injury that originally carried a four-to-six week recovery tag. “It took until the [Jan. 11] Boston game at home for me to feel more like myself.”
Even then, it took some time for Stepan to begin popping and resemble the productive player he’s been throughout his career that commenced in 2010-11. The center, who has just 21 points (nine goals, 12 assists) in 39 games, has gotten on the scoresheet in five of the past six games (one goal, five assists, six points) after failing to do so in 16 of his first 33 matches.
Lately, the puck has been moving more quickly. Plays have been made more decisively. There’s been more of a jump in Stepan’s, well, his step.
“For me, when I’m 100 percent and feeling good, the game slows down,” he said. “I can make more plays and I can see more plays. Maybe I haven’t been seeing them.”
Stepan is vital to the success of the power play, that at 20th in the league at 17.5 percent, hasn’t been very successful at all. Indeed, bouncing from one unit to another, he has just one goal and three assists with the man advantage. Zuccarello leads the Blueshirts with five power-play goals while Nash is next with four.
“That’s an area where I haven’t been contributing as well as I should, but I’ve been finding my confidence,” he said. “I think the last couple of games have been my best on the power play all year long.”
So into the second half go the Rangers, who have four of their next five games and 10 of their next 17 against divisional opponents. Into the second half go the Rangers, without Nash but with a sound Stepan.
“My production is coming, offensively,” he said. “Definitely.”