NHL

Rangers forward Clowe injures right leg

RALEIGH, N.C. — The Rangers might be shorthanded up front for the first round of the playoffs if the apparent second-period right leg injury that forced Ryane Clowe out of Thursday night’s 4-3 overtime playoff clinching victory over the Hurricanes does not heal within a week.

Clowe, who has been playing on the unit with Derick Brassard and Rick Nash, was helped off the ice with 7:43 to go in the second after engaging in a puck battle along the wall during a power play.

As per club policy, there was no postgame information provided about the winger’s status. Chris Kreider moved up from the fourth line on a semi-regular basis the rest of the way to fill the hole created by Clowe’s absence.

Brian Boyle, meanwhile, has not yet been cleared to skate, but the Rangers’ forward who Thursday night missed his fifth game also with a right knee injury, has at least made enough progress that he was doing off-ice training exercises yesterday without the brace he had been wearing since going down in Philadelphia on April 16.

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The Rangers, who had been carrying the minimum 12 healthy forwards with Boyle and Derek Dorsett (broken clavicle sustained in Columbus) rehabbing, recalled Kris Newbury following the match.

* Arron Asham left the club in the afternoon to fly home and join his wife, who was expecting. Defenseman Matt Gilroy, who has played the wing a handful of times in his NHL career and had been scratched for 21 straight, since March 12 in Buffalo, replaced Asham up front.

Gilroy picked up penalties on two of his five shifts last night — Carolina scoring a power play goal the first time he was in the box — and did not get on the ice after the 3:54 mark of the second

* Marc Staal, who was named the Rangers’ nominee for the Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy by the New York chapter of the Professional Hockey Writers’ Association, watched from the press box as his youngest brother, Jared, made his NHL debut and thus joined siblings Eric and Jordan in the Carolina lineup.

The Staal brothers, who became the fourth set of three sibling teammates in NHL history, opened the game together on the same line.

The Masterton Trophy is awarded annually to the player who “best exemplifies perseverance, sportsmanship and dedication to ice hockey.”

“It’s an honor to be recognized and have people know the work I put in,” said Staal, who has missed 26 games with the right eye injury he suffered when hit by a deflected shot on March 5. “Obviously I don’t want to be in the position I’m in [again] this year.”