Alain Vigneault laughed when asked Tuesday morning whether he had spent the previous night watching the Devils’ game — you know, the game New Jersey lost 1-0 to send Vigneault and his Rangers to their eighth postseason in the past nine seasons.
“It was a good game, great goaltending,” Vigneault joked before employing his favorite phrase for qualifying for the playoffs. “Obviously, we’ve got the checkmark now. To be able to compete for the Cup, you have to get in. To get in, it’s hard.
“Look at some of the teams that were in last year, like Ottawa and Long Island, who were young teams on the rise,” Vigneault continued. “Then this year, they don’t get in. It’s a challenge. We were able to because of our second-half push. We were able to get in and now [have] an opportunity to challenge for the Cup and the opportunity to finish as high as we can within our conference. That’s what we’re going to try to do here in the last three games.”
That starts at the Garden on Tuesday night, when Henrik Lundqvist is set to backstop the Rangers against the Hurricanes. That’s followed by another home game against the last-overall Sabres and then the regular-season finale in Montreal on Saturday.
Sitting two points ahead of the Flyers in the Metropolitan Division, the Rangers are eyeing home-ice advantage for that first round, which probably requires two more wins.
“We’re going to work on trying to finish as high as we can in the conference,” Vigneault said. “There are no easy games in this league.”
***
Both Ryan McDonagh and Chris Kreider partially participated in the morning skate, but were not made available to the media. McDonagh, the team’s No. 1 defenseman, has been out since last Tuesday with a left shoulder injury, and Vigneault is continuing to call him “day-to-day.”
The coach was rather indecisive on whether he wanted to play McDonagh before the playoffs begin, either next Wednesday (if they’re on the road) or Thursday (if they’re home — the Knicks have a home game at the Garden on Wednesday night).
“I’m 50-50 on that,” Vigneault said about playing McDonagh before the postseason. “He’s going to have to be 100 percent, which he should be, but I’m still 50-50 on that.”
Kreider underwent surgery on March 28 to repair a left hand injury, and he skated without a glove on his hand, just a soft cast. He didn’t use the hand to stickhandle at all, and Vigneault said, “He’s out indefinitely.”
When asked whether he had imagined a best-case scenario for Kreider’s return, Vigneault said, “I couldn’t,” before issuing a reminder that at this time of year, things get very tight-lipped concerning injuries.
“As you know, as we move forward here, injury-wise, we will not be giving out a lot of information,” he said. “Just so you know.”
***
Jesper Fast was set to play his first game since being recalled from AHL Hartford on Monday. Vigneault said the plan was for him to start on a line with Brad Richards and Carl Hagelin, just as he had in Monday’s practice.
That left Dan Carcillo as the odd man out up front (along with college signee Ryan Haggerty), while Derek Dorsett kept his spot on the reunited fourth line with Brian Boyle and Dominic Moore.
Defenseman Justin Falk remained a scratch, having not played since Dec. 29.