Day-to-day last Wednesday has become a whole bunch of days for Rangers defenseman Marc Staal, who missed his third straight with a sore left knee in last night’s 3-2 Garden loss to the Sabres, and remains questionable for tomorrow night’s match against the Wild.
According to John Tortorella, Staal suffered a “little bit” of setback skating in Monday’s practice.
Staal, who had never missed a game to injury in his four-year career before he sitting out Friday’s game in Washington after twisting his knee last Tuesday in Carolina, did not participate in yesterday’s optional morning skate.
Asked whether Staal would be able to go against the Wild in the finale of the current three-game homestand, the coach said, “I’m not sure.”
“I think he’s close,” Tortorella said. “But he’s just not right.”
Tortorella kept the Ryan McDonagh-Dan Girardi remodeled first pair together for the third straight match, but reconfigured his other tandems, shifting Bryan McCabe to the left side with Michael Sauer on the second pair while going with a Matt Gilroy-Steve Eminger third tandem.
McDonagh led the team with 24:44 of ice time; Girardi got 24:10; McCabe played 23:32; and Sauer, who did not have one of his better nights, was on for 21:24.
Without Staal to play the point on one of the two power-play units, McCabe played all but seven seconds of the Rangers’ 4:34 with the man advantage, firing six shots on goal (all less than a foot off the ice) with another five attempts blocked.
Mats Zuccarello, who has not scored since Jan. 19, a span of 17 games, got 2:42 on the power play, nearly all of it on the point. Zuccarello had a sensational chance to tie the match, jamming a rebound through Ryan Miller with 6:22 to go, but the goaltender calmly whisked the puck out of the crease after reaching behind with his glove.
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Tortorella said he had, “no reaction” upon learning that Marty Biron
had suffered a broken collarbone when the goaltender was hit by a Derek Stepan
shot off a two-on-one at Monday’s practice.
“You keep moving on,” he said. “There’s nothing you can do. It’s a broken bone.
“[Bleeping] and moaning about it doesn’t do anything.”
Actually, the coach could instruct his players against being so irresponsible in firing pucks high at their own goaltenders.
That message should have been sent months ago when Brian Boyle
hit Henrik Lundqvist
in the throat with a wild shot on Nov. 3, immediately sending The King to the locker room, where it took him several minutes to catch his breath
Lundqvist was fortunate to escape without injury. Biron, who was outstanding while going 8-6-0 with a 2.13 goals against average and .923 save percentage, was not so fortunate Monday.
The timing of the injury to the backup could not have been worse, coming as it did just a few hours before the NHL trade deadline and thus leaving GM Glen Sather
essentially no time to scramble.
Without time to maneuver and deal for a veteran No. 2, the Rangers initially recalled 23-year-old Cam Talbot
from ECHL Greenville to back up Lundqvist.
Immediately following last night’s match, however, the Rangers assigned the neophyte to the AHL Whale while recalling Chad Johnson
, who made five starts for the Rangers last season and was on the roster for 24 others as the backup.
Last night’s start was the ninth straight for Lundqvist, who has started 50 games with 17 to go after having started 72 (twice) and 70 the previous three seasons.
“Obviously my role will be a little bit different with the injury to Marty,” Lundqvist said. “I’ll be in there more than I probably would have been, but I just have to be at my best.”
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Ruslan Fedotenko
(shoulder) is likely to play tomorrow night against the Wild. Marian Gaborik
, sidelined since Feb. 20 with a concussion, was “status quo,” according to Tortorella.
“Rammer [trainer Jim Ramsay
] said he felt better [yesterday], but he hasn’t been on the ice [since Friday],” the coach said.
Excluding defined injury emergency conditions, NHL teams are permitted only four recalls following the trade deadline to the end of their AHL affiliates’ playoffs or regular season.
The Rangers used three of them on Monday by recalling McDonagh, Zuccarello and Kris Newbury
after they had been assigned to the AHL in paper moves that would allow them to play for the Whale in the playoffs.
The recall of Talbot and the subsequent exchange of backups following last night’s match are considered exceptions under the emergency rule.
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Tortorella, who The Post has learned was fined an undetermined amount for Sunday’s postgame outburst regarding the officiating, declined to respond to a question about the performance of last night’s referees.
The Rangers were 1-for-3 on the power play, with Erik Christensen
getting his third goal in two games by beating Miller short side from the right circle on the man advantage. The Rangers killed one of three Buffalo power plays, with Tyler Myers
 scoring on a blue-line wrist shot that banked in off Girardi’s stick to open the scoring at 17:15 of the first before Brad Boyes
converted a gorgeous no-look backhand feed across the crease at 13:00 of the second to give Buffalo a 2-0 lead.
Brandon Prust
played one shift for 42 seconds in the third period and did not get off the bench for the final 15:52.
The Rangers are home tomorrow to face the Wild before facing the Senators in Ottawa on Friday in a game that Johnson may start. The Rangers then have the Flyers at the Garden on Sunday afternoon before a weeklong trip to California during which they will play at Anaheim on March 9 and San Jose on March 12.