Apparently the Olympic break in the NHL schedule isn’t the perfect tonic the New York Rangers hoped it’d be, when it comes to curing their injury woes this season.
Jonathan Quick departed practice early with a lower-body issue on Saturday. Reportedly it’s for precautionary reasons; but keep in mind that the 40-year-old goalie missed time earlier this season after sustaining a lower-body injury Nov. 22.
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Quick sat out two weeks after that goal-mouth collision with Utah Mammoth forward Michael Carcone in a 3-2 Rangers’ loss.
This latest injury news comes one day after reports indicated Matt Rempe is headed to IR and will undergo a second surgery this season for his badly broken thumb. The towering forward missed nearly two months of action after mangling his thumb in a fight against Ryan Reaves of the San Jose Sharks on Oct. 23. He hasn’t been an effective player since; and coach Mike Sullivan indicated that Rempe continued to be hampered by the thumb injury, despite the initial surgery.
It originally appeared the two weeks off helped the Rangers get healthier during this Olympic break. When practice resumed Wednesday, both Igor Shesterkin and Adam Fox were full participants. That’s significant because neither of these two stars, arguably New York’s two most indispensable players, played since sustaining dual lower-body injuries in the same game, Jan. 5 against, ironically, the Mammoth at Madison Square Garden.
The Rangers lost 12 of 14 games without Shesterkin and Fox, including the one each was injured in, and stumbled to the break losers in four straight and seven of eight.
Of course, Fox also missed 13 games in December with an upper-body injury, and played just 30 games so far this season. It’s all part of a brutal season for the Rangers, who are last in the Eastern Conference, and snakebit when it comes to significant injuries.
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United States Olympians Vincent Trocheck and J.T. Miller each battled injuries this season; Trocheck missed a month with an upper-body injury, and Miller’s largely played through unspecified issues, though did sit out nine games due to injury, as well.
Defenseman Will Borgen also missed some time earlier this season, and forward Adam Edstrom hasn’t played since Nov. 29, though reportedly could return from a lower-body injury at some point following this break.
The Rangers resume play next Thursday, when they host the Philadelphia Flyers at The Garden. They play 25 games in 49 days to close out this dismal season.
Quick, who earlier this week stated his desire to remain with the Rangers during their current retool phase, struggled mightily filling in for the injured Shesterkin in January. Overall, the winningest U.S.-born goalie in NHL history is 4-14-2 in 20 games this season, with a 3.10 goals-against average and .890 save percentage.
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