Scott Hartnell – The veteran winger was a healthy scratch in Columbus’ 4-2 loss to the Rangers.
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The former first-round pick in 2012, who is 6-3 and 215 pounds, has played in four games with the Rangers this season. He scored his 20th goal at 18:49 of the season.
Tarasenko’s unassisted goal, his 37th of the season, at 10:42 came just seconds after Arizona goalie Mike Smith had denied Magnus Paajarvi on a two-on-none break and put the Blues ahead 3-2. Two nights after blowing a third-period lead against the Hurricanes, the Rangers surrendered three early goals and Henrik Lundqvist was pulled less than 21 minutes in.
Chris Kreider, Dan Boyle and Zuccarello scored goals in the first two periods as the Rangers took a 3-1 lead.
Aside from pushing to return for the final three games of New Jersey’s season, Elias said he isn’t looking at these three games as his last ones.
NY (44-26-9) was 0-2-1 in its previous three games and lost to non-playoff qualifiers Carolina and Buffalo in the past week before taking care of the business on the road against Columbus (31-40-8), another opponent that will not be advancing past the regular season. The injury left the Rangers with five defensemen for the remainder of the game.
It forced Klein onto his off left-side Monday night, where he was beaten wide on Jackets captain Nick Foligno’s second goal of the game 10:45 of the third period to close within 3-2. “People don’t realize how hard it is to be able to get an opportunity to play for the Stanley Cup. Now we can still work for home ice (in the playoffs), and that’s what we’re going to do”.
“We need to get out of that period 2-1”, Tortorella said.
Rangers coach Alain Vigneault said after the game that McDonagh would be re-evaluated Tuesday. The 22-year-old thus has first dibs for a spot in the opening postseason lineup if indeed McDonagh can not make it. Prior to the game, Jackets coach John Tortorella announced that Joonas Korpisalo would start again in the place of Sergei Bobrovsky. They were outscored 5-2 in the first period of their previous four games…. And in the immediate future, it could mean Dylan McIlrath’s return or a Raphael Diaz call-up for Tuesday night’s home tilt against Tampa Bay.
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The loss to the young Sabres was New York’s third straight, and it was accompanied by the MSG faithful voicing their displeasure. Columbus D Cody Goloubef left the game in the first period with an oblique injury.
