Before Wednesday night, Rangers had lost only one player to the COVID protocol list, when Kaapo Kakko lost the February 1 game against the Penguins, with what turned out to be a false positive test.
Kakko returned to the list on Saturday when he was removed from the Blueshirts tournament in Washington and remained in Wednesday’s game in Philadelphia. However, that was not all, as the Blueshirts put K’Andre Miller on the list also in the hours leading up to the 4-3 loss to the Flyers.
It is not clear whether Miller, who was replaced by Jack Johnson, had a positive test. It is also unknown whether the Rangers could be vulnerable to an outbreak following these situations, which occurred five days apart.
Johnson, a scrape in Saturday’s win over the Capitals, had disputed the Rangers’ 3-2 win on penalties in Philadelphia last Thursday after losing his previous eight games due to a groin injury. He had participated in just one training session before returning to the team.
Mika Zibanejad played perhaps his most dynamic game of the year, receiving a pair of assists in 20:20 from freezing weather, but he was denied twice on shorthanded trails, the second with 3:40 remaining and the Blueshirts losing 4- 3. Zibanejad has also been denied before, with 5:45 left in the first period, when the record rolled over to him.
Both times, he went to the backhand. Both times, Brian Elliott was up to the task. He was asked if he thought he could have scored if he was in a normal season, not in which he has two goals, with one of them deposited in the empty goal.
“I don’t know. I made the move I usually do, he read it, he didn’t come in,” said Zibanejad. “So I don’t know. It’s a difficult question to answer. It just leads to more speculation. I’m just trying to keep it as long as possible. simple as possible and don’t think too much about those chances. ”
The pair of assists doubled the center’s season total to four.
The Blueshirts yielded 39 shots on goal, the maximum they allowed this season.
Rangers, 2 out of 5 in power play, have now scored three goals in a row with the man’s advantage (4 out of 15), after scoring 0 out of 14 in the previous five matches.
In the absence of Miller, Kakko, Jacob Trouba (thumb) and Artemi Panarin (license), Brendan Smith and Anthony Bitetto were in the points in the power play of the second unit. The Blueshirts scored 10 power play goals, with the first unit scored for nine of them.
Rangers have won just 20 of 55 matches (36 percent), with Zibanejad winning just two of their 14 draws.