kevin shattenkirk

This morning sure was exciting, wasn’t it? There was a flurry of activity for the Rangers as they prepare for their west coast trip. The first, and the most troubling, is the news that Kevin Shattenkirk will have knee surgery for a torn meniscus, and will be out indefinitely. Justin noted the timetable for this is somewhere between 4-12 weeks.

In response, the Rangers recalled Tony DeAngelo from Hartford. They also recalled center Daniel Catenacci from Hartford. The last roster move was assigning Lias Andersson to Hartford, instead of returning him to Frolunda in the SHL. Lots of stuff, so let’s dive right into it.

I’m going to save Shattenkirk’s injury for the end, because I have lots of thoughts. But let’s start with DeAngelo. First things first: About time. He had a really rough start to his Rangers career, but has turned it on lately. By all accounts he’s been much better since roughly December, and it’s shown on the ice too. It makes sense that the Blueshirts would replace Shatty with DeAngelo, since DeAngelo is the only guy who can pretend to mimic Shatty’s production.

As for Catenacci. I have no idea. I guess people are banged up?

Assigning Andersson to Hartford was the next logical step. They are preparing him for a potential recall to fill the center depth. He played through a separated shoulder in the World Juniors, so it looks like that has healed.

Now for Shatty….

The Rangers just don’t learn their lessons, ever. They allowed Dan Girardi to play through a fractured knee cap a few years ago, and he was atrocious. That came after AV said he’d rest him more. Now Shatty has had a torn meniscus since September and the Rangers did nothing about it. They gave him some pain shots.

First, this is as much on Shatty as it is on the organization. Playing hockey on one leg is downright silly. The shots are worse, since they increase scarring and make the surgery more invasive. But the Blueshirts organization, who knew he was playing through pain, never got this checked? Or they did, and let him play half a season?

And Alain Vigneault, who said that Shatty was a “work in progress” a few weeks ago. If he knew about the knee injury and still said it, then shame on him. If he didn’t know, then ignorance is bliss, I guess? This is another bad look for an organization that has made a lot of questionable calls with their players recently.

On a side note, if the Rangers were wondering if they should sell at the deadline, the Shatty injury solidifies that they should. They are down a top line forward and a top pairing defenseman with almost zero depth to handle the losses.

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