Rangers welcome back Chris Kreider for showdown with Bruins

GREENBURGH, N.Y. — Chris Kreider and Mika Zibanejad were making a beeline toward Igor Shesterkin.

Kreider was flying down the left side of the ice. Zibanejad, matching his nominal left wing stride-for-stride, was coming down the middle of the ice.

Kreider had a choice: pass or shoot.  He decided to go backhand-forehand before lifting a shot up and over Shesterkin’s glove for a goal. Moments later, he was embraced by Zibanejad.

Yeah, No. 20 is back.

And, to hear Zibanejad, not a moment too soon.

“It’s obviously important to have him back,” Zibanejad said after practice Wednesday morning at the MSG Training Facility. “[It’s] fun for me to have him back [as a] teammate and one of my best friends, too. To have him on the ice, to have him on the ice for us and for me as a linemate [is] awesome.”

Kreider, who suffered an upper-body injury from a Marcus Foligno check in the Rangers’ 4-3 shootout win over the Wild on Jan. 10, has sat out the last three games. In that stretch, the Rangers won two of three, sandwiching a 2-1 win over Dallas last Thursday and the 3-1 win in Columbus Monday night around Sunday’s 2-1 loss to the Canadiens.

Six goals in three games is a small sample size, and Gerard Gallant would not blame the lack of offense on Kreider’s absence. But he did acknowledge that the roster is significantly improved with the 31-year-old in it.

“When guys like [Kreider] aren’t in your lineup, you miss them,” Gallant said. “You miss his speed, the way he gets on pucks. He’s a great player on our team. Fifty-two goals [in 2021-22] and he’s got 19 or 20 this year. So he’s an important guy. But when he’s out you have to put somebody in there [to] do the job. Definitely we like our team a lot better when he’s there. He does a lot of good things. He has a lot of speed. And he’s a powerful guy in front of the net.”  

Which is where Kreider found himself when the first power-play unit went against the first penalty-kill unit during special teams drills. He also regained his normal slot as the top-line left wing on the line with Zibanejad and right wing Kaapo Kakko.

With Kreider back, Alexis Lafreniere was reunited with center Filip Chytil and right wing Barclay Goodrow on the third line. In the three games Lafreniere skated on the top line, the first overall pick in the 2020 draft recorded six shots on goal and four penalty minutes.  

“He was fine,” Gallant said of Lafreniere. “Good . . . He played fine. He had a couple chances to score. Didn’t go in the net but played fine.”

Kreider’s return to the Rangers (25-13-7) coincides with Thursday’s game against league-leading Boston (34-5-4), who played against the Islanders Wednesday night at UBS Arena.

Thursday’s game is the second of three regular-season matchups between the Original Six rivals. The Rangers lost the first game, 5-2, on Nov. 3 at the Garden. Leading 2-1 entering the third, the Rangers allowed four goals.

“I think I blocked that one out,” Kreider said. “[A] very, very different point in the season but obviously a very good team coming in.”