SAINT PAUL, Minn. — Derek Dorsett is not Wally Pipp and Dan Carcillo sure isn’t Lou Gehrig, but it appears as if Dorsett has lost his job as fourth-line right wing to Carcillo because of injury.
Carcillo was back in the lineup for Thursday night’s match against the Wild and Dorsett was back out after coach Alain Vigneault had tried it the other way in Tuesday’s 3-1 defeat in Carolina. That marked the first time Carcillo had been a healthy scratch since his Jan. 8 debut as a Ranger.
The move was not rewarded on the scoreboard, the Blueshirts losing 2-1, but the Carcillo-Dominic Moore-Brian Boyle unit did come through with some momentum-creating shifts, even if the club did not capitalize on them.
The scratch marked the fifth in eight games for Dorsett since rejoining the club following the Olympic break after having been sidelined for 17 games with the broken fibula he sustained blocking a shot in Pittsburgh on Jan. 3.
“At the end of the day, our fourth line and our balance has looked a little bit better with Dan [with Boyle and Moore],” Vigneault said. “It’s nothing that Dorse’ has done wrong.
“He got hurt, somebody else got an opportunity, and they seem to have run with it.”
The Blueshirts are 14-7-1 with Carcillo, obtained from Los Angeles the day after Dorsett went down, in the lineup. They are 0-2-1 with Dorsett since his return from IR.
A requirement for signing free agent Ryan Haggerty out of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute was that the winger remain with the Rangers for the rest of the season. The 21-year-old, who will thus complete the first year of his three-year entry-level contract, will begin to practice with the club on Monday.
“I don’t know him at all,” Vigneault said. “I know Gorts [assistant general manager Jeff Gorton] has talked very highly of him and one of the conditions was he’d be coming in.
“So he’ll come in, we’ll meet him and see what happens.”
The Rangers, who killed three Minnesota power plays, have killed 18 straight over their last seven games.
The Blueshirts were 1-for-3 on power play but failed to score on a man-advantage they got at 16:40 of the third when Kyle Brodziak sent the puck into the crowd in the defensive zone. Vigneault pulled Cam Talbot with 1:39 remaining and though the Rangers went hard to the net in the final seconds, creating a wild scramble, they could not get the tying goal.
Henrik Lundqvist is scheduled to start Friday night in Winnipeg and Sunday afternoon at the Garden against the Sharks.