The Undertaker is here.
Standing at 6-foot-5, 230 pounds, from Winnipeg, Manitoba . . . Dylan McIlrath will make his NHL debut for the Rangers on Thursday night when they play host to the Blue Jackets.
McIlrath will take the spot of Justin Falk as a third-pair defenseman, and hopes to bring some of the grit that his moniker announces to a team that could surely use it.
“There is no surprise that’s the type of player I am, and maybe that’s why they brought me up, to add a little bit of that element, ” McIlrath said after the morning skate. “I’m not going to do anything out of the ordinary that’s in my game, and that comes with a bit of grit and sandpaper. So I’m going to do anything I can to help the team win.”
The 21-year-old was drafted with the 10th overall pick in 2010, and his 115 penalty minutes through 24 games with AHL Hartford were leading the league. He had nine fighting majors, and it wouldn’t be too much of a surprise if his anticipation boils over.
“It’s just pure excitement,” McIlrath said. “Stepping on that Garden ice, even though it’s a pregame skate, I couldn’t help looking around. It’s the dream I’ve been waiting for since draft day. It’s something special and I’m just going to suck it in.”
In recent days, coach Alain Vigneault has been talking about his team playing a more conservative, defensive and tight game, and in doing so, adding some punch. McIlrath certainly fits that description.
“He definitely brings size and hopefully some physicality to our game,” Vigneault said. “He’s done that, whether it be in junior or the American league, and hopefully he can do it at this level.”
Vigneault knew with only six healthy defensemen, he wanted to bring up a blueliner, and after a conversation on Wednesday with Hartford coach Ken Gernander, Vigneault decided McIlrath would be the one.
“I talked yesterday with Ken in Hartford, and we talked about the possibility of calling up a defenseman, and his name came up,” Vigneault said. “He felt that the way Dylan had played defensively, penalty killing, he was the guy to call up. He had been improving since we sent him down [after training camp] and if we wanted any one of his defenseman, that he was the guy to call up, so trust the coach and call him up.”
So McIlrath will join a lineup that now has a more physical presence, including the addition of tough-guy winger Arron Asham, called up to play in Tuesday’s 4-1 loss to the Predators, along with Derek Dorsett, who got back into the lineup on Tuesday after missing three games and five of the past seven with a sore left wrist.
They will both stay in the lineup on Thursday, while Taylor Pyatt will come back in for injured captain Ryan Callahan – out four-to-six weeks with a second-degree MCL sprain in his knee suffered on Tuesday – and Beniot Pouliot will come in for Derick Brassard, who couldn’t play with what Vigneault called an “inflamed posterior” after falling on his backside on Tuesday.
Henrik Lundqvist will make his fifth consecutive start in nets, the first time he has played that many games in a row this season.