Rangers welcome trio of reinforcements for matchup with Wild
New York Rangers center Jonny Brodzinski before a face off against Boston Bruins left wing Nick Foligno last January. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
ST. PAUL, Minn. – Here’s Jonny!
And Connor. And Louis.
The Rangers said hello to three callups on Saturday night as they faced the Wild at the Xcel Energy Center.
Forward Jonny Brodzinski rejoined the team from AHL Hartford to replace the injured Filip Chytil, who was placed on injured reserve Friday with an upper body injury suffered in a 2-1 victory over Carolina on Thursday. Chytil will have to miss at least seven days.
Defenseman Connor Mackey was called up from Hartford to take the roster spot of Adam Fox, who was placed on long-term injured reserve after a knee-to-knee collision with the Hurricanes’ Sebastian Aho in the same game.
Fox, a Jericho native, will miss at least 10 games and 24 days.
The third player added from Hartford was goalie Louis Domingue. He backed up Jonathan Quick against Minnesota.
No. 1 goalie Igor Shesterkin was not in uniform because he came out of Thursday’s game “banged up,” coach Peter Laviolette said on Saturday.
The nature of the 'banged-upness' was not revealed. But Laviolette said the plan was always to start Quick against Minnesota, which came into the game with a 3-5-2 record.
“We made a decision to recall Louis,” Laviolette said. “This was always Jonathan Quick’s game to start. This was the plan as we were coming here. Now the fact that we have Domingue here as the third goalie, we're going to play that and just give [Shesterkin] some break and some rest.”
The Rangers, who had won six in a row, were also without forward Barclay Goodrow, whose wife is about to give birth to the couple’s son.
When you going into a game with an 8-2 record, you probably figure you can weather any injury absences, even ones to key players such as Fox and Chytil.
“We dealt with it pretty well in the second half of that game [on Thursday],” captain Jacob Trouba said. “Everyone’s going to have to step up [into] a little bit more of a role. Missing some big players. Every team goes through it throughout the year, so now it's our turn.”
Brodzinski is no stranger to Rangers fans. The 30-year-old appeared in 44 games for the Rangers over the past three seasons with three goals and two assists. This season, he has six goals and five assists in seven games for Hartford.
“He had a really good training camp,” Laviolette said. “He was noticeable with his speed and his puck possession and what he was able to generate and create. Really upbeat, positive guy. Is off to a tremendous start in Hartford. He was a clear-cut name that we were talking about when we were talking about replacing the centermen. He's been a really good player down there and so we're just going to bring him up, send him right into it and give him an opportunity. He's a righthand shot. Chance to help out a power-play unit. So we're going to see what he can do there as well.”
Erik Gustafsson will move up from the second power-play unit to assume Fox’s quarterbacking responsibilities on the top one and will pair on defense with Fox’s partner, Ryan Lindgren.
Defenseman Zac Jones, who had played in one game, will be paired with Braden Schneider.
“We’re really trying to make as little moves as possible,” Laviolette said. “I think Gus has handled that situation. He's a guy that we count on to play big minutes and shut down teams. Foxy’s done a great job with him, but there has to be some moves made because of what happened last game. Gus is an experienced defenseman. He can skate, he can defend, he can make good plays coming out of our end, so this is a starting point for them. Again, we're trying to not move things a lot. Not shake things up a lot.”
Anthony Rieber covers baseball, as well as the NFL, NBA and NHL. He has worked at Newsday since Aug. 31, 1998, and has been in his current position since July 5, 2004.
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