With spot clinched, battle for home-ice begins; McD update

              The talk at this morning's post-clinching practice was all about looking ahead for playoff seeding, not behind, starting with tonight's matchup with Carolina. The Blueshirts host Buffalo on Thursday and then visit Montreal on Saturday.

             Brian Boyle: "You need to be playing well going into the playoffs…There’s still a lot at stake. We’re going to have challenges, and we’re coming off a couple games were we didn’t get (enough) points so we’ve got to stop the bleeding…You want to do was well as you can; that should be the mindset, it doesn’t matter about matchups…Home ice means you don’t have to travel right away; it's more what’s leading up to the games."

              Marc Staal: "Home ice is big especially if you get later in the series, Game 7 is an advantage if you have that home ice, so you absolutely want to get as many points as you can...You don’t look too far ahead, it could be Philly, if we win the next two games, but I'm not sure of all the scenarios. We won’t focus in on a team until we know who it is; you focus on how you're playing as a team."

              Alain Vigneault: "We’ve got the checkmark now; in order to compete for the Cup, you’ve got to get in, and to get in it’s harder now. You look at some of the teams that were in last year, Ottawa and Long Island, young teams on the rise, and this year they don’t get in. It’s a challenge…we have the opportunity to finish as high as we can (in the next three games.)"

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                 The odds are 50-50 that Ryan McDonagh, who missed his third straight game last night with an injured left shoulder, will play before post-season games begin next week, Vigneault said.

               “He’s going to have to be 100 percent, which he should be,” Vigneault said after McDonagh skated with a half-dozen teammates in an optional practice at Madison Square Garden.

                McDonagh, who was crunched by Canucks forward Alex Burrows into the glass from behind in the waning seconds of the game in Vancouver on April 1, would need contact in practice before being cleared, Vigneault said. The Rangers are scheduled to practice Wednesday, but Vigneault was not totally certain that the team’s top defenseman, listed as “day-to-day”, would be there. “We’ll see how today goes,” he said.   

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              Chris Kreider, who had surgery to repair a broken bone in his left hand on March 28, skated while using only his right hand on his stick and did not have a glove on the other, which has a soft cast. There is no timetable for his return, but it is doubtful that he will play before the playoffs.

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           This year’s Steven McDonald Extra Effort Award, which is based on a fan vote, will be presented tonight pre-game. My guess is that the co-leaders are Ryan McDonagh and Mats Zuccarello. Ryan Callahan had won the award four of the last five seasons.

            The award has been presented each April since 1987-88 to the player who goes above and beyond the normal call of duty, and is named in honor of paralyzed New York City police officer Steven McDonald, who presents the award.

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             Staal received the annual John Halligan Good Guy Award from the New York chapter of the PHWA for cooperation with the media. “After games, it’s hard to stick around when you don’t really feel like it or want to,” said Staal. “(But) you want to be there to kind of give a picture of how you thought the game went; I tried to do that a lot more this year.”

            Staal did not speak to the press on Saturday after Ottawa forward Chris Neil’s hit, which drew a two-minute minor penalty. Staal retaliated and was assessed four minutes. “I was a little pissed off, “ he said. “It was a late hit…if someone dumps the puck in on me and takes two strides and I level him, penalty box, 100 percent. So I dump it in, take two strides, I don’t think he’s going to hit me. I haven’t watched it, but then I saw him the corner and went in a little harder than I did, the way it goes sometimes…I thought at least it’d be a wash, it’s disappointing the way it worked out.”

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          With rookie Jesper Fast in the lineup,  Dan Carcillo was a healthy scratch....Fast will skate with Carl Hagelin and Brad Richards; Marty St. Louis will be on the right side of Derek Stepan and Rick Nash. The Zuke-Brassard-Pouliot line is intact and Boyle-DMoore-Dorsett is the fourth trio. Henrik Lundqvist is in the net....

         More from MSG later...