PITTSBURGH — When Ryan Callahan is ready to rejoin the Rangers lineup, he will rejoin the lineup, and in a top-six role. There is no debate about that.
And though there has been no official declaration, indications are the Rangers’ captain will return Friday night against the Penguins after having missed nine games with a sprained left MCL he sustained against Nashville on Dec. 10.
That means coach Alain Vigneault will have to scratch one forward from the lineup that has gone 4-1 over the last five games while reconfiguring at least a couple of the line combinations that have been intact through the run that ended the calendar year.
J.T. Miller is the most likely candidate to be scratched even though the 20-year-old has played his most consistent hockey of the season — if not of his brief, two-year-career — since going into the middle between Carl Hagelin and Benoit Pouliot five games ago to form a unit that has played up-tempo and has been reasonably effective below the hash marks.
The Chris (Doesn’t Work Overtime) Kreider-Derek Stepan-Rick Nash putative top line is all but certain to remain intact, so Callahan would likely slide in on the right on the second line with Brad Richards in the middle and Mats Zuccarello on the left.
That means Derek Brassard, who had been playing the left with Richards and Zuccarello (at RW), would return to his natural center position on the third line with Hagelin and Pouliot.
Brassard hasn’t been especially effective at even-strength, and will never be mistaken for the prototypical third-line center, but he has excelled on the power play on what has become the first forward unit with Zuccarello and Pouliot.
So he is not coming out of the lineup.
Indeed, Brassard has assists on four of the Rangers’ five power-play goals over the last five games, with Pouliot scoring three times and Zuccarello contributing a goal and two assists. Brassard (4-9) and Zuccarello (3-10) are tied for the club lead with 13 power-play points while Pouliot leads with five goals.
That raises another question for Vigneault. If the top man-advantage unit remains intact, does that mean the captain would replace Kreider on the second forward unit with Stepan and Nash, even though the rookie winger is tied (with Callahan and Brassard) for second on the club with four power-play goals and tied for fourth with eight points?
The coach could instead shift Stepan back to a point on the second unit in place of John Moore or Anton Stralman (or Michael Del Zotto, should he bump Moore from the lineup), with Kreider, Callahan and Nash up front.
But back to the lineup. If Miller isn’t in a top-nine role, he doesn’t fit, not with the Brian Boyle-Dominic Moore-Derek Dorsett fourth line fulfilling its role in providing bursts of down-low energy.
Dorsett obviously isn’t coming out, and while Boyle has struggled at even-strength most of the season, he has been an effective penalty killer. Moore, too, has been a staple on the penalty-kill unit.
Beyond that, Boyle (56.2 pct.) and Moore (55.4) are the team’s leading faceoff men by leaps and bounds ahead of Richards (49.3), Brassard (47.5) and Stepan (44.8).
So even though Miller has done nothing to merit being scratched, it would appear that will become his fate when Callahan returns.
Taylor Pyatt, who had been scratched from eight straight and nine of the last 10 matches, was claimed off waivers Thursday by the Penguins and is likely to play for his new team against his old team on Friday.
Pyatt, who signed a two-year, $3.1 million deal with the Blueshirts as a free agent out of Phoenix during the summer of 2012, had one point (0-1) in 22 games this season and 12 points (6-6) in 70 games overall for the Rangers.
Deleting Pyatt leaves the Blueshirts with approximately $2.7 million of full-season value cap space that would translate into approximately $6.99 million of space at the March 5 trade deadline.
The Rangers signed Quebec Ramparts winger Anthony Duclair, their 2013 third-round Entry Draft selection, who is third in the QMJHL with 57 points (31-26) in 37 games.