When the Rangers return to Madison Square Garden on Friday night, Rick Nash likely will miss his eighth straight game with a bone bruise in his left leg, while Ryan McDonagh is expected to miss his third straight game as he recovers from a concussion.
In the midst of an unanticipated battle to solidify a playoff spot, the Rangers were robbed of their most dynamic scorer then after lost the defensive captain who doubles as one of their most dependable players.
But after being stripped of its stars — who remain listed as day-to-day — the team that went nearly two months without stringing together consecutive wins has reeled off four straight wins, marking the Rangers’ longest win streak since mid-November.
“You need guys to step up when they get the opportunity to play more minutes, and that’s what we’re having right now, a different player stepping up and making right plays at the right times,” goalie Henrik Lundqvist said. “You can’t just rely on one or two guys. It’s big for us right now to have the defense playing the way they are right now.”
Though Lundqvist and the defense have allowed five goals in the past four games and given up just one even-strength goal since McDonagh was injured, the offense has benefited from unlikely contributions, particularly in Wednesday’s 3-0 win in Pittsburgh, in which Kevin Hayes scored for the first time in the past 13 games, Dominic Moore scored his first goal of 2016, and Jesper Fast scored for the first time since Jan. 11.
“The guys usually doing that type of dirty work stepped up and made some big plays, and you need that on nights like this where you’re missing Nash and Mac,” defenseman Marc Staal said. “You need different guys to step up on the score sheet.”
After taking down the league’s hottest team, the Rangers face another tough test Friday night against the Pacific Division-leading Kings, who defeated them in the 2014 Stanley Cup Finals. The Rangers (31-18-5), who enter the three-game homestand with a five-game winning streak at home and have recorded a point in each of their past eight games at the Garden, split last year’s two meetings with Los Angeles (32-17-3), which played Thursday night in Brooklyn against the Islanders.
If the Rangers’ streak is going to stretch some more, their long-struggling penalty kill (ranked 25th in the league) will need to carry the momentum of its two successful opportunities against Pittsburgh, going up against the Kings’ third-ranked power play.
“We’ve been working at it, doing a lot of video,” Rangers coach Alain Vigneault said of the penalty kill after Wednesday’s win. “We got a couple big saves, also. They say on penalty killing, the most important player is your goaltender, and [Lundqvist] was our most important player on that.”
On Friday, Lundqvist is set to pass Mike Richter for the most career appearances by a goaltender in Rangers history, playing in his 667th game.