McDonagh Leaves Practice Early; Staal Skates With Girardi

Per Jim Cerny, defenseman Ryan McDonagh left practice early with the flu. Following his departure, Marc Staal skated with his usual partner –and McDonagh’s current partner– Dan Girardi. The Rangers are not carrying any extra defensemen in the event that McDonagh cannot go tomorrow.

This leads to my own speculation: Could Staal play tomorrow if McDonagh can’t go tomorrow? It seems to be the only scenario that would be likely if this is the scenario. We may know more as the day progresses, either directly via an announcement, or indirectly via specific roster moves.

For Staal to be activated, the Rangers need to put both Mike Sauer and Steve Eminger on LTIR. Neither are close to returning, so those would be the logical moves to clear the cap space.

This is just speculation on my part, but it’s going to be interesting to see what happens if McDonagh’s condition doesn’t improve. It’s just the flu, but it’s still the flu.