Prospal still trying to find his best stride

Vinny Prospal is six weeks removed from arthroscopic knee surgery, so it shouldn't be a surprise that he's not yet 100 percent, even though he missed only two weeks of playing time.

"They said it's more like six to eight weeks until you feel right," Prospal told Newsday after the Rangers' 3-1 win over the Devils on Saturday night. "I was skating 10 days after [the surgery], so I knew there would be a little pain left, and there still is sometimes."

The Rangers did more than just survive while Prospal, their second-leading scorer and sidekick to Marian Gaborik, was out. Their 4-1-2 record from Dec. 26-Jan. 12 is a distant memory of solid play, with the team currently in a 4-9-1 rut since Prospal's return.

But the 34-year-old veteran has been a help to the power play, which has gone 5-for-9 the last two games after an 0-for-25 skid the previous seven games. He showed some speed and strength to gain the Devils' zone on a second-period power play, starting the tic-tac-toe passing that ended with Gaborik's easy tap-in that opened the scoring.

"I've never been a fast player, but with the loss of weight I had [15 to 20 pounds in the offseason], I got a little quicker than I was before," said Prospal, who has three goals and eight assists in the 14 games since he returned. "With the time away, that was a setback. You need time to work on your quickness between the games - quick-foot drills, stuff like that. And we haven't had much time, so it's been a slow process."

There is an aspect to Prospal's return that hasn't been discussed much, either: Playing well on an extremely affordable one-year, $1.15-million deal, Prospal could be a very attractive deadline rental for a team in need of depth for a Stanley Cup run. Prospal isn't being actively shopped by Glen Sather, according to a source, but the Rangers could get a very nice return before the March 3 deadline.

Until then, Prospal is getting closer to playing the way he did early in the season, when he was on a hot streak and helped cement Gaborik's star status.