It was almost apparent in the tone of John Tortorella’s voice early Tuesday night that this was close to happening, that Chris Kreider was not distancing himself from the Rangers and their coach, but inching his way back to the big club with each goal he scored in the minors.
So yesterday afternoon, it was not a total shock when the team recalled the talented 21-year-old forward, 20 days after it sent him down.
“You don’t want to keep on knee-jerking him back and forth,” Tortorella said before his team beat the Devils, 3-2, on Tuesday night at the Prudential Center. “We want to make sure, if we do [call him up] that we feel he’s ready to play.”
Apparently, scoring six goals in eight games enabled that confidence.
Kreider’s promotion comes on the heels of one of the Rangers’ largest offensive outputs in almost a month. They had scored three or more goals once in the previous seven games.
During the majority of Kreider’s recent period playing for the Connecticut Whale of the AHL starting with his demotion on Feb. 28, the Rangers struggled to score. It caused many refreshes of the transactions page of the AHL website, and it wasn’t until the team was preparing for tonight’s Garden match against the Panthers that his name finally appeared.
“We’re dying to get a guy that’s 6-foot-3, 6-foot-4, that can skate like hell into our lineup,” Tortorella said of Kreider. “But we’re not going to do it at the expense of him, in hurting him as far as we’re try to develop him.”
To make room for Kreider, the team sent enforcer Micheal Haley back to the Whale after he had played in nine straight games since being called up on March 5.
In Kreider’s first three games for the Whale, he scored four goals. He then went scoreless for three, but put in one apiece in a two-game weekend homestand.
“When he started scoring some goals there, there were still some things in his game that [Whale coach Ken Garnander] and those guys down there want him to work on,” Tortorella said. “But the reports on him are good. Over the weekend, the two games they won, we got some really good reports with him.”
* After taking a hard elbow to the head in the second period on Tuesday and then complaining about headaches and neck pain, franchise cornerstone goaltender Henrik Lundqvist seems to be OK.
“He’s fine, he’s fine,” Tortorella said after yesterday’s optional practice, shaking his head and dismissing any threat of serious injury.
Lundqvist has played in 25 of the Rangers’ 29 games this season, and played back-to-back nights Monday and Tuesday.
* Forward Arron Asham is aiming for Sunday night’s game against the Capitals at the Garden for his return. Asham has been suffering from a lower lumbar back injury, and has missed 14 games in a row. He said he still can feel the injury, but it’s something he can play through, and now it’s just a matter of getting into game shape.