The Rangers know their defense is in dire straits without Ryan McDonagh.
Which is why they were being overly cautious with the captain, sitting him out with an undisclosed injury for Friday night’s 4-3 shootout loss to the Penguins at Garden.
“He’s day-to-day, nothing serious,” coach Alain Vigneault said Friday morning. “But at this time, after discussing with our medical staff, everyone felt it was better to keep him out for [Friday] night’s game.”
McDonagh missed Thursday’s practice for “maintenance,” and that is the only term the team was using to describe his injury. They play next on Sunday at home against the Flyers.
Mike Vecchione, the prized free-agent prospect whom the Rangers coveted coming out of Union College, signed Friday with the Flyers.
A finalist for the Hobey Baker Award as the best player in college, Vecchione is supposed to play for Philadelphia sometime in their final five games, but not Saturday in Philadelphia against the Devils.
He could play for the Flyers when they visit the Garden to take on the Rangers on Sunday night. The 5-foot-10, 195-pound center is the all-time leading scorer in Union history and won a national championship alongside current Flyers defenseman Shayne Gostisbehere.
Following an awful game in San Jose on Tuesday, rookie forward Jimmy Vesey was a healthy scratch. Yet Vigneault was not changing his tune that Vesey would be part of the Rangers’ postseason lineup — and likely would be in the lineup on Sunday.
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“There’s no particular message,” Vigneault said of the benching. “Jimmy has been a real solid player for us. His last game might have been a little bit more challenging. He was not the only one that the last game had a challenging night. But [Friday] night, we’re just going that way. He’s definitely going to be in our group going forward.”
With McDonagh out, Nick Holden was started on a defensive pair with Dan Girardi — but Holden continued his recent struggles. With Girardi and Kevin Klein having both just come back from injury, Vigneault decided to juggle his pairs and ended up playing rookie Brady Skjei a team-high 25:09.
“I just wanted to use Brady’s speed a little bit more,” Vigneault said. “Kleiner is just coming back, Dan is just coming back; they’re finding their way, their timing.”
Joining Vesey as scratches were forwards Brandon Pirri and Tanner Glass, while defensemen Adam Clendening and Steve Kampfer also sat.