The Rangers’ workmanlike 2-1 victory over the Devils at the Garden on Monday cannot obscure how Ryan McDonagh’s concussion complicates matters for general manager Jeff Gorton as the Feb. 29 trade deadline approaches.
For the issue as it applies specifically to pending free agent Keith Yandle is no longer black and white in the aftermath of the gray matter rattled inside the captain’s skull as a result of the gloved sucker punch he took on the jaw from Wayne Simmonds in Philadelphia on Saturday.
There is no rule of thumb to apply to recovery time from brain injuries. The Rangers have not released any information regarding the severity of McDonagh’s symptoms, but they were bad enough that he did not make it to the rink at all Monday.
Is this going to be a long-term or short-term absence? It is folly to hazard a guess. But the injury clouds Gorton’s mandate. If McDonagh’s symptoms persist, the Rangers obviously cannot even think about dealing Yandle, who led the team in ice time both against the Flyers and the Devils, getting 27:33 and 25:19, respectively.
In fact, even though the Rangers played a stout game while dressing four righties and two lefties as Dan Boyle moved to his off-side without missing a beat, and even though coach Alain Vigneault said he is comfortable sticking with that alignment Wednesday in Pittsburgh, Gorton might even have to deal for a left defenseman if McDonagh is down for a significant stretch.
Boyle got 16:37 of even-strength time, with most of it on the left, paired with Dylan McIlrath for 9:42, Dan Girardi for 1:41 and Kevin Klein for 1:33. The 39-year-old said he couldn’t remember the last time he’s played that side, which means it was a really, really long time ago.
“For the most part, I enjoyed it,” said No. 22. “It was a different feeling and a different look, but I like moving around when I’m on the ice.”
It is, of course, one thing to present an unbalanced alignment in which players are put into unusual positions against the offensively challenged Devils, 29th-overall in production at 2.2 goals per. It will be another thing in Pittsburgh, and another thing to ride this out for the long run, if necessary.
And that is with Yandle, suddenly thrust into a spotlight apart from deadline-related matters.
“It’s one of those things when you’re missing a guy like Mac, what he brings to the team in every aspect of the game, on and off the ice, it’s big shoes to fill,” said Yandle, who played well but committed the faux pas (or is that faux pass?) on which the Devils capitalized to score a shorthanded goal with 2:17 to go.
“Missing a guy like [McDonagh], it’s one of those things where you have to rise up and want to be a part of the solution.”
Losing McDonagh would have been problematic at any time for the Blueshirts, who have won three straight and are 9-4-1 in their past 14. But the captain had elevated his game dramatically over the past three weeks, almost as if he had taken his team’s plight personally. Indeed, McDonagh had begun to resemble the ascending force he’d been throughout the 2013-14 season … until he suffered a separated shoulder on April 1 when he was crushed into the boards from behind in Vancouver by Alexandre Burrows.
We’ve remarked before that McDonagh seemed to have absorbed an unusually large number of crushing hits for a defenseman of his caliber. There was the hit from Burrows, the hit from Evander Kane that separated McDonagh’s shoulder again on Oct. 30 of last season. There was the monstrous railroading from Alexander Ovechkin in Game 6 of last year’s conference semis, and the huge blow he took from Steven Stamkos in Game 6 of the conference finals.
And no, a partner riding shotgun would not necessarily have protected McDonagh from this punishment. Having Jeff Beukeboom as Brian Leetch’s partner did not prevent Trent Klatt from smashing No. 2 into the boards in Game 2 of the 1997 conference finals in Philadelphia; that was the hit on which Leetch suffered the debilitating sprained right wrist that pretty much ended whatever chance the Blueshirts might have had to pull off the upset.
The Rangers played a solid 60-minute game against the Devils at both ends of the rink. They seem to be stabilizing. But the landscape ahead is filled with booby traps without McDonagh … both for the team and the general manager.