Ryan Lindgren was a full participant in Wednesday’s practice for the first time since suffering an upper-body injury in a fight with Scott Mayfield during the Sept. 22 exhibition match at the Garden.
The defenseman, who remains on IR, skated on a fourth pair with Chad Ruhwedel.
It is unclear whether Lindgren, still wearing a full face shield, will be available on the club’s three-game trip that starts Thursday in Detroit preceding matches in Toronto on Saturday and Montreal next Tuesday, Oct. 22.
“He’s still listed the same way so we’re going to stay with that,” head coach Peter Laviolette said when asked about Lindgren’s status. “He was out there today, a full practice with no restrictions and that was good.”
If the seven defensemen on the active roster remain healthy, the hierarchy will face multiple decisions once Lindgren is cleared.
Will the team stick with the K’Andre Miller-Adam Fox first pair or will Laviolette go back to the previously inviolate Lindgren-Fox duo that would create a ripple effect impacting all three tandems?
Would Schneider return to the right on the third pair with Zac Jones while Miller skates on the 1A/1B shutdown pair with Jacob Trouba, who’s off to a pretty good start with Schneider on his left?
Or would the club stick with their top four and insert Lindgren for Jones on the left side of the third pair with 22-year-old righty Victor Mancini, who has done nothing at all to lose his job? Of course, neither has Jones.
In addition, the Rangers will be obligated to send a defenseman to AHL Hartford when Lindgren rejoins the roster.
Ruhwedel, who has played five games since he was acquired from Pittsburgh at last year’s deadline, would require waivers in order to get to the AHL while Mancini would not.
Mancini has earned a spot in the NHL. But if he were somehow to become a chronic scratch, he would be better served by getting major minutes with the Wolf Pack than by watching the Blueshirts in street clothes.
Of course, there is no reason he should become a chronic scratch.
Jonathan Quick would be expected to get the start for at least one of the first two games of the trip. A year ago, Quick got his first action when he relieved Igor Shesterkin late in the second period of the Blueshirts’ fourth game, pitching a 26:07 shutout, before starting the fifth game two days later.
Chris Kreider was “sick,” a medical term not a description of his performance per the Rangers, but traveled with the club to Detroit. Will Cuylle took Kreider’s net-front spot on PP1.
