Injury Bug Bites Rangers

Take a deep breath, it’s not Marian Gaborik, although Andrew Gross reported he, Ryan Callahan and Chris Drury did not skate in the Monday practice. All that appears to be nothing significant, or so we can only hope.

With that said, here’s the big news. Vinny Prospal injured his knee in Saturday’s OT loss to the Islanders and had arthriscopic knee surgery today to clean it up. He will be out a minimum of 10 days, but possibly as long as three weeks. Obviously, this is a big blow to the Rangers as Prospal has eight goals and 24 assists (most on New York) on the season. We can only hope he is sidelined for something closer to 10 days rather than three weeks. I didn’t see anything happen on the ice when I was at Saturday’s game and he was on the ice for the Isles’ game-winning goal. Apparently, Prospal was slashed a couple of times and the extent of his injury wasn’t known until after the game.

Again, the Rangers have a rather favorable schedule the next few games, so they might be able to tread water until they get Prospal back. In the meantime, it seems like this could give P.A. Paranteau another opportunity to prove himself in the NHL. For now, let’s keep our fingers crossed and hope the Blueshirts can take care of the next couple of games, which they should win.