There was at least one more move in the head games played between the Rangers and the Canadiens — and, more specifically, between their respective coaches, Alain Vigneault and Michel Therrien.
Hours before Game 6 of the Eastern Conference finals at the Garden on Thursday night, with Vigneault and his Blueshirts up 3-2 in the best-of-seven series and one win away from the Stanley Cup finals, Therrien went out of his way to kick-start one more misdirection campaign.
This one pertained to injured Montreal forward Dale Weise, whom Therrien said was unable to play in Game 6.
Having been the victim of a blindside head shot from Rangers defenseman John Moore in the third period of Game 5, Weise was clearly wobbled and discombobulated. He had gone to the locker room — to a place Therrien called “the quiet room” — and when he emerged, he had apparently been cleared by doctors and played three more shifts.
Moore was given a five-minute elbowing major, along with a match penalty, and on Wednesday was handed a two-game suspension, beginning with his banishment from Game 6. In the league’s explanation video, the suspension was partly because Weise sustained “an injury.”
One industry source revealed to The Post on Thursday the ambiguous injury had been identified as a concussion before the hearing, and the nature of the injury and the league’s sensitivity to concussions was a major reason Moore received the suspension he did.
Instead of owning up to that, Therrien went in front of the press and laid out his newest narrative. When asked about the symptoms that Weise might have had, Therrien answered, “What symptoms?”
When the questioner said he was presuming Weise had a head injury, Therrien said, “Yes, you’re presuming. You’re not correct. … He’s got a ‘body’ injury.”
When Vigneault was asked for his reaction to the suspension, he was not about to get pulled into another verbal quagmire.
“Does it matter?” he said. “I have no reaction.”
After Therrien declared Weise had not been concussed, he also did a bit of mop-up work concerning the fact he put Weise back out on the ice after the violent collision.
“After the hit, he went to meet the doctors, saw the doctors, he was feeling fine about finishing the game,” Therrien said. “For us, what is really important is player safety. This is important for us. It’s been like that all season long. It’s not going to change.
“For a player not able to play the next game, this is something that we could see on a regular basis.”
But, oh no, Therrien couldn’t stop there. Instead, for the umpteenth time this series, he went ahead and compared apples and oranges, putting the broken jaw of Rangers center Derek Stepan as a point of reference for what happened to Weise.
Stepan had his jaw fractured on a late hit from Brandon Prust in Game 3 — a hit that earned Prust his own two-game suspension, although no on-ice penalty — and Stepan did return to the ice, playing without impediment to his game or his ability to yap at opposing players and referees.
Yet almost needless to say is Stepan’s physical injury and Weise’s suspected brain injury — despite Therrien’s denials — are two things that have to be handled quite differently.
“Stepan finished a game with a broken jaw, [got] an operation the next day, [missed] Game 4, and came back after his operation,” Therrien said. “So those are the things that you see at this time of the year. But right now, [Weise] has a ‘body’ injury. He won’t be able to play.”
Since the start of this series, Therrien has — breathe in — accused Chris Kreider of a “reckless play” when he slammed into Montreal’s starting goalie Carey Price in Game 1; shooed away the Rangers coaches from his practice in a faux “gentleman’s agreement” the Rangers said didn’t exist; claimed he knew Rangers center Derick Brassard was going to play in Game 4 and knew “exactly where he was injured.”
Now, Therrien can add misdirection about an injury as another thing on the list of head games he has attempted to play.
“We trust our medical staff,” Therrien said. “We trust our doctor. So when they’re saying that he’s good to go, he’s good to go.”
Until he’s not, then it’s all about the spin.