Sports

MESS DONE FOR SEASON

Brian Leetch was wearing the captain’s “C” when he skated onto the Garden ice last night for the 1,000th game of his NHL and Ranger career. He will wear the scarlet letter just below his left shoulder for the remainder of the year.

He will do so because Mark Messier has finally yielded to reality and will undergo season-ending arthroscopic surgery this morning on his left shoulder, the one that has debilitated The Captain since mid-December. Messier had missed 16 of the last 24 games the Rangers had played going into last night’s match against the Senators, and had been rendered all but useless in the eight in which did participate.

“Obviously I wish circumstances were different, but I’m very comfortable with the ‘C,'” said Leetch, who was team captain from 1997-2000, the three years Messier spent in Vancouver. “I was comfortable with it before.”

Messier, who turned 41 on Jan. 18, had desperately sought alternatives other than surgery ever since the rotator cuff impingement flared up following the Dec. 17 match against the Panthers. But when three high-intensity ultrasound treatments during the Olympic break in Toronto on cutting-edge medical equipment failed to relieve the pain in the shoulder, Messier had no other choice.

“We’re told that the rehab could be anywhere from six weeks to six months,” Glen Sather said at yesterday’s morning skate. “Of course, Mark [who was not available for comment] says he’ll be back in four weeks.”

The regular season, in which the Rangers have 21 games remaining, will end six weeks from tomorrow.

“Mark told me that he’d be back for the playoffs, but he would never think differently; he’s always been an optimistic individual,” said Leetch, whose team entered last night’s game tied with Montreal for eighth place and just three points ahead of Washington. “From a team standpoint we’re certainly going to miss him, but it’s not as if this situation has suddenly developed.

“We’ve been dealing with it for quite a while now.”

Messier, who had registered 21 points (7-14) with a plus-one rating in his first 33 games, had just two assists while going minus-two in his eight games following the injury. He has career totals of 658 goals, 1,146 assists and 1,804 points in 1,602 NHL regular-season games. Though his contract will expire at the end of the season, Messier has not addressed the subject of retirement.

The Rangers at this moment are far less concerned with next season than with the next six weeks. While Eric Lindros, Petr Nedved and Manny Malhotra are the current top three centers, Sather will certainly explore the market at the GM’s meetings that commence Sunday in Florida.

Ron Low yesterday said that the team might recall Michal Grosek from Hartford, where he has been exiled since mid-October. Grosek has been playing the middle for the Wolf Pack, but the Rangers could move him back to wing while at the same time flipping Mike York back to his natural center position. The organization believes that first-year pro Jamie Lundmark, whose play has improved dramatically over the last month, would benefit from a full year at the AHL level.

“There’s no question that we’re going to miss Mark terribly, both in the locker room and on the ice,” said Low. “But it’s up to the guys we have to pick it up.

“We have to respond to this in a positive manner.”

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Glen Sather said that Igor Ulanov will be assigned to Hartford if, as expected, he clears waivers at noon today … Theo Fleury, who yesterday celebrated a year of sobriety, continued to insist that will consider retirement at the end of the season. Said Low: “I think it’s time for all the talk circling around Theo to disappear. This is not the time to be talking about Theo and his antics; it’s time to be talking about the team and what we need to do to make the playoffs.”