OTTAWA, Ontario — Barclay Goodrow went to the locker room in the first period and did not return to the Rangers’ eventual 6-2 loss to the Senators on Tuesday night, after K’Andre Miller’s keep-in attempt smacked the utility forward directly in the face.
Once the puck made contact, Goodrow slid on the ice holding his face.
He then got up pretty quickly and rushed to the locker room.
The Blueshirts classified it as an upper-body injury, but Goodrow lost a tooth or two on the play.
“Yeah that’s tough,” head coach Peter Laviolette said of losing Goodrow. “Listen, that happens. Certainly we don’t like to see that, he’s an important part of our team for a lot of different reasons.”
If it is in fact just a missing-tooth situation, Goodrow shouldn’t be in any danger of missing time.
Jonny Brodzinski acknowledged that this is perhaps the first time in his career that a NHL coaching staff trusted him immediately and put him in a position to succeed.
That continued to ring true when the 30-year-old lined up on the right wing of the top line alongside Chris Kreider and Mika Zibanejad for a second straight game Tuesday night.
“Jonny’s come up here and he’s a different type of player,” Laviolette said after morning skate at Canadian Tire Center. “He brings speed. He was playing really well at the time in the American Hockey League. … I think at times when you recall somebody, you automatically think that they’ll take the 12th spot in the lineup and his game had been much more than that. Certainly down in the American Hockey League, where he was the leading scorer, plays with speed, captain leadership.
“It was a chance to see what that looked like with Mika and Chris. I thought he played a really good game. They were productive. He’s got four points in four games, so we’re not going to switch that right now.”
Brodzinski is the third player given a chance to fill the right-wing spot on the top unit, after neither Kaapo Kakko nor Blake Wheeler could hold onto the role. It’s really the only spot that’s seen Laviolette make performance-based changes this season.
There has been no additional update on the status of Filip Chytil, who missed his 14th straight game Tuesday with an undisclosed upper-body injury.
He continues to progress and skate, according to Laviolette, but he has yet to rejoin the team on the ice.
Kaapo Kakko missed his fourth consecutive game with a lower-body injury, which landed him on long-term injured reserve at the end of last month. He has yet to resume skating, according to Laviolette.
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