Rangers forward Carl Hagelin didn’t think it was that bad, but his elbow to the head of Senators captain Daniel Alfredsson 10:32 into the second period of last night’s 3-2 overtime loss in Game 2 of their opening-round playoff series has garnered NHL attention.
Hagelin was called for a five-minute major, and Alfredsson didn’t return to the game.
Afterward, it was announced the league has requested a meeting with Hagelin this afternoon at 1:30 p.m., with the Rangers rookie set to meet with NHL vice president of player safety Brendan Shanahan. If Hagelin is suspended, odds are newly signed winger Chris Kreider would take his place in the lineup.
“I don’t think we should lose him for Game 3,” Rangers coach John Tortorella said. “If we lose Hags for Game 3, they should lose [Chris] Phillips for Game 3.”
Tortorella was referring to the Senators defenseman who was called for putting an elbow to Ryan Callahan in the first period, drawing a two-minute minor. No subsequent action appeared to be taken regarding that incident.
When Senators coach John MacLean was asked about the Alfredsson hit, he deferred.
“I’ll let Brendan Shanahan see what he thinks about it,” MacLean said. “It doesn’t matter what I think about it.”
Earlier this year, on Oct. 29, then-Ranger Wojtek Wolski hit Alfredsson in the head, causing him to miss a significant amount of time with a concussion. Zenon Konopka responded, saying the next time they played on Nov. 9 that “it still [bleeps] me off.” Konopka then went out and got into a fight with Sean Avery.
Ryan McDonagh appeared to be injured after blocking a shot by Jared Cowen that preceded Chris Neil’s overtime game-winner. The Rangers defenseman got up slowly and skated off the ice hunched over in apparent pain, but there was no immediate word on his condition.
Although they managed to score a power-play goal last night, the Rangers are still struggling with the man-advantage.
After last night’s 1-for-4 performance, the Rangers are 1-for-8 in their two playoff games. The one goal came when Anton Stralman, on the second unit, managed to find the far corner of the net on a slap shot from the right dot.
“We’d like to score more on the power play,” is the way Brad Richards simply put it.
The biggest chance for the Rangers came just 2:15 into the first period, when they got a five-minute man-advantage resulting from Matt Carkner’s pummeling of Brian Boyle. In that five minutes, with an assortment of unit changes, the Rangers managed two shots on goal.
Stralman’s goal came later in the period, but with one more chance in the first and another in the second, the skilled Rangers group seemed stagnant.
The Rangers are 0-for-6 in their past six overtime playoff games. Since the lockout, they’re 1-for-7, the one coming from Michal Rozsival in double overtime of Game 3 of their 2007 conference semifinal against the Sabres. They lost that series 4-2..