VANCOUVER, British Columbia — The Rangers’ 3-1 victory on Tuesday night over the Canucks that extended the club’s lead for first-round home ice while reducing the playoff-clinching magic number to three points may have come at a heavy cost.
For Ryan McDonagh — the Blueshirts’ best skater throughout the season and their most valuable other than Henrik Lundqvist — left the ice with an apparent left shoulder injury and in visible pain after taking a wicked hit into the rear boards by Alexandre Burrows with 43.8 seconds remaining in the contest.
“It’s not serious,” a Rangers spokesman said, referring to the initial diagnosis for McDonagh, who left the building with his left arm in a sling.
Nevertheless, the defenseman received treatment for an extended amount of the time following the match, and the Rangers already have lost Chris Kreider for an indefinite period to a left hand injury. After being remarkably healthy most of the year, the Rangers cannot afford to be without McDonagh for any significant stretch.
“You get worried,” said Lundqvist, steadfast in the face of relentless Canucks traffic and pressure throughout the first 50 minutes of the match. “We have important weeks ahead of us — hopefully months — and it’s important that we’re healthy.
“Hopefully it’s not too bad.”
McDonagh, who was in the process of retrieving the puck, was first hit by Zack Kassian on the left before Burrows nailed him from the right, blindside. Burrows received a five-minute elbowing penalty and game misconduct.
“It’s not a good thing to see him laying on the ice,” Brad Richards said. “But he’s resilient and battles through a lot. Hopefully it’s short-term and nothing serious.”
The Rangers’ victory, their seventh in the last eight games overall, established a franchise record for wins on the road, this one in the Alain Vigneault-John Tortorella matchup behind the bench in their league-leading 25th away from home (25-14), with two more to go, including Thursday night’s match in Colorado and the season finale at Montreal on April 12.
“We’re going after home-ice,” said Marc Staal, whose team leads the Flyers by three points in the battle for second place in the Metro Division, though Philadelphia holds two games in hand. “The mindset is to keep winning and building into the playoffs.”
Marty St. Louis put an end to our long civic nightmare by getting his first goal in 15 games wearing the Blueshirt on a shorthanded two-on-one at 10:15 of the third with the Rangers clinging to a 2-1 lead. It was the 30th overall for the winger, who expressed relief at finally getting off the schneid.
“The first one is the hardest to get,” said St. Louis, who buried Rick Nash’s feed to record the Rangers’ seventh shorthanded goal in the last 15 games, a stretch during which the club has scored five power play goals, including one by Benoit Pouliot that gave the team a 2-0 first-period lead. “I’ve tried to stay the course and play the right way.”
Vigneault juggled his combinations for the game, moving Carl Hagelin up with Nash and Derek Stepan, while also shifting Dom Moore to the left with Richards and St. Louis and constructing a fourth line of Brian Boyle between Dan Carcillo and Derek Dorsett. The Brassard-Benoit Pouliot-Mats Zuccarello unit remained intact.
The Canucks, facing elimination from the playoffs, were a desperate team and played like it, hemming the Rangers in most of the way. The Blueshirts were unable to create much time and space. Their defensemen were reduced to attempting to simply bang the puck out of the zone rather than make plays and then join the attack.
“We played a bit more in our end than we want to,” Staal said. “We weren’t able to find the middle of the ice like we normally do.
“But we battled and did a great job killing penalties and kept our composure. It’s just about winning, now.”
It’s about McDonagh’s health, as well.