Chris Kreider (hand) to miss at least 5 games

              Well, it’s official.

              Left wing Chris Kreider will miss at least five games with a hand injury, possibly a broken bone, and team doctors are still deciding whether he will undergo surgery.

             Kreider, 22, was injured against Columbus last Friday, coach Alain Vigneault said today after the morning skate at MSG, and will not join the team on their four-game road trip starting Thursday. On Tuesday night, a team spokesman would only confirm that Kreider would miss tonight’s Flyers game.

               Vigneault said Kreider, who was skating on the first line with Derek Stepan and Rick Nash, did play two games after the injury---against the Devils and Coyotes---apparently with minimal pain.

              J.T. Miller was summoned from Hartford and will play tonight against the Flyers, Vigneault said.  Martin St. Louis, back to form after playing through the flu against Phoenix on Monday, will move to the first line, and during the morning skate, it appeared that Nash will move from right wing to the left side.

              Miller, who has 33 points in 35 games in Hartford, was not at the skate. Vigneault said that Ryan Haggerty would not dress, so it is likely that Miller would be on a line with Derick Brassard and Mats Zuccarello. Vigneault said however, that he was still sorting it out.

              Vigneault suggested that Miller knows he “needs to be dependable” defensively. “He also been playing real well offensively, they’re (the Wolf Pack coaches) real happy with his production.”

              The 6-foot-3 Kreider has 17 goals and 37 points, and provided a net presence that the club needs at both even strength and on the power play.

             But Vigneault tried to minimize the impact of Kreider’s loss in that area.

             “It’s one of the things we’ve worked on quite a bit throughout the year,” Vigneault said. “Yes, we like having one guy on each line going to the net a little more, but each guy has to go there, that’s where you score the goals, Where did Brad Richards score his goal last game? He was in front of the net and he tipped it; it’s not easy, it’s tough. If you go in that area, usually you going to get hacked and whacked, but if you want to score and you want to score on a consistent basis, that’s where you’ve got to go.”

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               Defenseman John Moore, who sustained a concussion on a hit by Columbus’ Blake Comeau on Friday, will miss his third game, but he was on the ice in the morning skating and shooting and said he was feeling closer to normal.

             “It felt good, didn’t really push too hard on the gas,” said Moore, who could not provide a timeline for a return. “It feels good to be going in the right direction. They’re taking their time with it.”

              Moore is expected to travel with the team to Western Canada and Denver.

              After the hit, he said, “I kind of tried to power through it, and Rammer (trainer Jim Ramsay) is one of the best in the league and kind of recognized something wasn’t right….I kinda pleaded with him to go back out there; in hindsight, that wasn’t very smart, and came back off the ice. It was a variety of symptoms that they say are concussion-like. More than anything, it just didn’t feel right. I’ve played this game long enough to know what normal is. It’s the first time I’ve had that.”

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            Vigneault on the Flyers-Rangers history: “From what I’ve seen on TV, itt’s intense. It’s a good rivalry, it’s emotional, it’s physical, there’s definitely bad blood between the organizations. The games we’ve played against them this year have been hard.”

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           St. Louis and Stepan both said they have recovered from the flu,  but  Dan Carcillo is the latest victim and isn’t expected to play tonight.  The fourth line, as seen in the skate, remains Brian Boyle-Dom Moore and Derek Dorsett.