NHL

Moore remains out, but ‘feeling good,’ says Vigneault

There was positive news regarding the health of young Rangers defenseman John Moore, who was concussed during Friday’s rousing 3-1 win in Columbus when Blue Jackets’ forward Blake Comeau put a shoulder into his chin.

“He felt much better [Monday],” coach Alain Vigneault said before his team beat the Coyotes, 4-3 in overtime, Monday night at the Garden. “He’s going to follow the concussion protocol there. He rode the bike today, and he was feeling good.”

For the second straight game, it was Raphael Diaz replacing Moore on the third defensive pair with Kevin Klein. After Klein volunteered to play the left side for Saturday’s 2-0 win over the Devils in Newark, the two right-handers switched sides for this game, as Vigneault said he needs to see if Diaz can play on his off-side going forward.

“I thought it was all right,” was Vigneault’s postgame evaluation of the third pair, as Diaz played 13:14 and Klein got 11:45. “I want to look at the tape again there. We tried a lot of combinations back there. At the end of the day, we were trying to find out who had the best energy, who had the best execution.”

With Martin St. Louis and Derek Stepan both fighting the flu bug, the contingency plan, as per Vigneault, was for J.T. Miller to be an emergency call-up from AHL Hartford if neither could go. That point was made moot once St. Louis and Stepan did play — even though Vigneault called that decision “a mistake” because they had “no energy.”

Yet the possible Miller call-up was in light of the fact that recent addition, forward Ryan Haggerty, has now been with the team for a week after signing a free-agent deal out of RPI that nonsensically doesn’t allow him to be sent down this season.


The Coyotes, leading 3-2 at the time, lost starting goalie Mike Smith with 7:34 remaining in the third period. He was bumped into by Derick Brassard, who was pushed by defenseman Derek Morris, and Smith fell awkwardly over on his right leg, writhing in pain.

“I really felt bad,” Brassard said after trying to console the No. 3 goalie for the Canadian Olympic team.

Smith was replaced by Thomas Greiss, who quickly gave up the game-tying goal to Dan Girardi with 3:28 remaining, and then surrendered the game-winner to Ryan McDonagh 1:56 into overtime.


Derek Dorsett came back after missing Saturday’s game with the aforementioned flu bug, bumping Dan Carcillo from the lineup.

He was joined as a healthy scratch by defenseman Justin Falk, who hasn’t played since Dec. 29.