SUNRISE, Fla. — Leaving Manhattan having squared the Eastern Conference Final series against the Panthers at one win apiece, the Rangers landed in the Sunshine State to new obstacles as they prepare to begin what is now a best-of-five.
When Jimmy Vesey’s shoulder took the brunt of an obliterating hit from feisty Florida forward Ryan Lomberg and forced him to retire for the remainder of Game 2 on Friday night, the importance of having a complement of forwards to choose from came into full effect.
“He’s going to be week to week,” head coach Peter Laviolette said.
Laviolette has only needed to make consequential personnel and lineup decisions toward the end of the second round and through the first two games of the third — but they’re here now and they’re pressing.
With multiple candidates who are not only healthy but also served as regular skaters at one point or another during the year, Laviolette can take his pick.
Behind Door No. 1 we have Blake Wheeler, the big-bodied power wing who has only recently become an option after suffering a season-ending lower-body injury on Feb. 15.
Based on Laviolette’s previous intuition to insert Filip Chytil — also sidelined for a majority of the 2023-24 campaign with a suspected concussion — in Game 3 of Round 2 against Carolina with a 2-0 series lead, this could be a good time to get Wheeler involved if that is the ultimate plan.
That’s what’s kept Wheeler going for the last three-plus months: the possibility of joining this Rangers playoff run, which has gotten closer to the Stanley Cup Final than the 37-year-old has since the one time he and the Jets went 1-4 in the 2018 conference final against the Golden Knights.
Having played more NHL games than anybody on the Rangers roster, Wheeler is still chasing his first championship.
Similar to Chytil, Laviolette has to ask himself whether Wheeler can jump into playoff action after an unexpectedly quick recovery.
That and whether the lineup is better with Wheeler in it.
Wheeler appeared in 54 games for the Blueshirts this season, largely playing on the right wing of the top line with Chris Kreider and Mika Zibanejad.
He scored nine goals and dished 12 assists while averaging a career-low 12:43 of ice time per game.
Though he looked a step behind this season, Wheeler brings size to that first unit and gives it a grittier complexion that could be useful against a ferocious Panthers team.
There’s also no way to quantify what Wheeler’s presence would do for his teammates who have been watching him fight his way back.
Behind Door No. 2 there’s Jonny Brodzinski, who skated in a career-high 57 NHL games this season and played in Games 4 and 6 of the second round for the Rangers.
The bottom-six skater brings speed to any line he plays on.
Setting career highs with six goals and 13 assists this season, Brodzinski is a serviceable replacement who has already played in more postseason games than he ever has.
And then there’s Door No. 3, where Kaapo Kakko took his place Friday night after the Finnish wing found himself as a healthy scratch in a conference final game for the second time in three years.
The 23-year-old hasn’t necessarily had a bad postseason, in which he’s collected a goal and an assist, but it hasn’t been particularly impactful either.
Kakko has been skating on the right wing of a line, with Alex Wennberg and Will Cuylle, that has had difficulty generating any sort of threatening offense despite their innate ability to maintain puck possession and sustain zone pressure.
They’ve been so snakebitten that it prompted Laviolette to bump Jack Roslovic from the first line to replace Kakko in Game 2 on Friday night, which allowed Chytil to move up.
Wennberg is necessary as a center and Cuylle plays a straight-line, hard-edged game that’s valuable, but Kakko hasn’t been able to set himself apart.
If Kakko isn’t the next man up in this situation, it’ll say a lot.
