COLUMBUS, Ohio — John Moore, injured in Friday’s 3-1 victory against the Blue Jackets, is questionable for Saturday’s match in New Jersey, thus setting it up for Raphael Diaz to make his Rangers debut 17 days after being acquired from Vancouver at the trade deadline.
Moore took a high, hard hit against the boards from Blake Comeau with 8:31 remaining in the first period. He did not play the remainder of the period, then took six shifts worth 4:04 in the second before he was essentially pulled from the game by trainer Jim Ramsay, according to coach Alain Vigneault.
The coach, who would not elaborate on the nature of the injury, said that Moore would be “reevaluated” on Saturday.
Derek Dorsett, a scratch for six of the previous seven games, replaced Dan Carcillo in the lineup and responded with perhaps his best game of the year. Vigneault explained he hadn’t liked the way the Brian Boyle-Dominic Moore-Carcillo line had played on Tuesday in Ottawa, and decided to bump Carcillo even though, in his opinion, he hadn’t been the worst culprit.
One wonders, though, if Vigneault was annoyed at Carcillo’s lackadaisical attitude on the final shift against the Senators, on which the Rangers iced the puck four times in the final 59 seconds.
The Blue Jackets saluted Rick Nash with a video tribute on the scoreboard at 6:15 of the first period during the game’s first TV timeout. The fans, who had booed Nash at the start, responded with an ovation. But they booed No. 61 lustily the remainder of the match and with fury after his imbroglio with goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky at 17:06 of the second.
While players from both teams grabbed hold of one another in the five-on-five tussle that ensued after Nash gave the Columbus goaltender a double-gloved punch to the throat, Henrik Lundqvist moseyed about 40 feet from his net before turning back when he saw Bobrovsky separate from the scrum.
“If it’s six-on-five, I have to go, I can’t let them have the extra guy,” Lundqvist said before breaking into a smile. “But I didn’t have to tonight. … Lucky him [Bobrovsky].”