It seems that in absence, Alain Vigneault’s heart grew fonder.
The Rangers coach’s love for winger Jesper Fast somehow found a way to increase during his three-game absence because of a quadriceps injury, which ended when he unexpectedly returned Monday for the Winter Classic at Citi Field. Fast was supposed to miss two-to-three weeks with the injury sustained Dec. 21, but came back in 10 days — something that even Vigneault thought would not have happened as early as Monday morning.
Yet despite the frigid temperatures, Fast went right back to being his dependable and effective self, steadying a fourth line with Paul Carey and Boo Nieves and making a terrific pass to collect the primary assist on Carey’s game-opening goal at 4:09 of the first period.
“For a coach, he’s such a low-maintenance player,” Vigneault said Wednesday before a Garden matchup against the Blackhawks, the first game back from the outdoor extravaganza.
“I’ve said this many times, any guy on our team up front that wants to know how to play the system and do the little things right, all you have to do is look at him. Watch 20 minutes of Jesper Fast playing hockey — on the forecheck, on the backcheck, along the wall, along the boards, stick position. He just understands the game and he gets it.”
Vigneault has always been an adamant supporter of Fast, easier now that the 26-year-old Swede is in the first year of a new three-year, $5.5 million deal, carrying a modest annual salary-cap hit of $1.85 million. The price might be a little low for his value to the team, having won the Players’ Player award two years running as voted on by his teammates.
But Fast has never scored more than 10 goals in a season, which he did in 2015-16, and that’s that place where Vigneault sees the biggest upside.
“Lately he’s been able to make some pretty good plays that have led to goals,” Vigneault said. “If we can get a little bit more of that offensive contribution, that offensive side that I think he has, he’s a very important player for our team.”
The assist Fast had on Carey’s goal was a pretty slick play, as Nieves dug the puck out of the corner and Fast was able to thread a pass to an open Carey near the right dot. It was the group’s first shift of the game, and it was some way for Fast to return to the lineup.
“Of course it’s a good feeling to have that start,” Fast said. “As a line, I thought we played good. We had an opportunity to use our speed. It was a good game overall.”
Although it wasn’t clear from the outside, Fast always had the Winter Classic targeted as his return date. He said, “It’s not always you get an opportunity to play a game like this,” also adding, “It brings back memories when we were young.”
The temperature outside peaked at 20.5 degrees at puck drop, and only plummeted as the shadows grew longer and the wind picked up. It was obviously an undesirable environment to return from a muscle strain, but Fast said the doctors told him he couldn’t worsen the injury and that if he felt good, then he was good to go.
“We said we’d see how it felt in the warmups,” Fast said. “Felt fine.”
After the game, Fast said the leg “felt good,” and it didn’t seem like there were any lingering effects from the game or the temperature. His return was set to keep rookie Vinni Lettieri out of the lineup for the second straight game, which meant that maybe the lineup as a whole didn’t have as much offensive firepower from top to bottom.
But Vigneault, as always, was certainly happy to have Fast back in the lineup.