There has been recent discussion around the Rangers’ decision not to place Ryan Lindgren on long-term injured reserve after he suffered a left shoulder injury on February 25.
Had Lindgren been placed on LTIR, the Rangers would have been able to recall a defenseman after K’Andre Miller received a three-game suspension for spitting at LA’s Drew Doughty the following night.
The team would have had an extra $2.9M to work with and would have been able to play with a full deck of forwards against the Kings.
However, Lindgren’s injury was not severe enough to warrant a 10-game and 24-day absence, which would have been mandated had he been placed on LTIR.
If Lindgren can return during the team’s upcoming trip to Montreal, Buffalo, and Pittsburgh, he will have missed four, five, or six games.
But if he is sidelined throughout the trip, he will have missed seven games, and if he were on LTIR, he would have missed all those games, only eligible to return on March 23.
The Rangers’ medical team expects Lindgren to return in a timely manner, and if his absence stretches to nine games or more, there would be a reason to question Drury’s decision not to put him on LTIR.
Filip Chytil has gone 12 straight games without a goal after recording 11 goals in a 13-game stretch that ended on February 8.
Over the past seven games, he has been on for two goals and eight against, and the Rangers need him to pick it up again.
Meanwhile, Alexis Lafreniere has scored three goals in his past four games, garnering him more ice time on the Rangers’ power play and moving him within reach of matching the 19 goals he scored last season.
Kaapo Kakko played a season-low 11:21 in Boston on Saturday while being dropped from the second power-play unit.
He has one goal in his past 10 games and three in the past 28, while Lafreniere has recorded eight goals in the past 17 games.
Finally, the article ends with a mention of Bryan McCabe, who the Rangers acquired as a rental for the final 19 games of his 15-year career in 2010-11.
»Ryan Lindgren’s injury effect on Rangers«
↯↯↯Read More On The Topic On TDPel Media ↯↯↯