SUNRISE, Fla. — Updates regarding the Rangers’ three current injured athletes vary in regard to their projected respective returns to duty:
Michael Grabner, who missed a fourth straight game, in the Rangers’ 5-2 victory Tuesday over the Panthers, with the hip injury he sustained on a cross-check from Adam Clendening at last Wednesday’s practice, did not skate in the morning, but worked out at the club’s hotel.
“He’s getting better,” coach Alain Vigneault said of the winger, who leads the club with 26 goals despite being enmeshed in a nine-game drought. “There’s an outside chance, maybe, that he could play in Carolina [on Thursday].
“We’re not skating [Wednesday], so he’ll go on Thursday morning. Unless he’s 100 percent, we’ll wait.”
The next game after Thursday is set for Sunday in Detroit, the originally scheduled 12:30 p.m. faceoff shifted to 7 p.m.
Dan Girardi’s right ankle, meanwhile, is healing, with the “hole” created when he blocked a shot against the Ducks on Feb. 7 closing through a “vacuum” procedure.
“He’s coming along real well. He’s close to skating again,” Vigneault said of the alternate defenseman, who has missed the past five games and seven overall in the aftermath of the shot-blocking escapade. “He’s close to skating again. I’d say he could be on his skates in three to five days.”
But there is no timetable at all relating to Kevin Klein, who has been sidelined for eight straight games with unknown back issues.
“He’s on the hold mode for now. It’s not getting any better,” Vigneault said.
After taking a second look at the play on which the Lightning’s Gabriel Dumont was assessed only a two-minute minor for boarding for drilling Steven Kampfer into the boards from behind at 14:12 of Monday’s first period at Tampa Bay, Vigneault did not like it or the call any more than he had the moment it occurred.
���I thought it was an obvious cross-check up high, 3 or 4 feet from the boards,” he said. “It was a dangerous hit. They called it two minutes, [but] it probably deserved a little more.”
Kampfer did not miss more than a shift, if that, but that hardly excuses the officials’ leniency.
Asked whether he got an explanation from referee Justin St. Pierre, Vigneault said, “I didn’t get one I liked,” before guffawing loudly.
St. Pierre, who worked Monday’s game with Kelly Sutherland, also was part of the officiating crew for Tuesday’s game, with Brian Pochmara.
With emergency conditions no longer applying to Pavel Buchnevich’s recall from AHL Hartford, the Rangers have used three of their four allotted post-deadline, regular-season promotions with Tanner Glass and Kampfer having been summoned on Sunday.