Rangers' Jimmy Vesey glad to be back from injury: It was 'brutal' not playing 

GREENBURGH — Jimmy Vesey said it was “brutal’’ to not be able to play in the first 10 games of the Rangers’ season before he finally was able to get off the long term injured reserve list and make his season debut in Sunday’s 5-2 Garden victory over the Islanders.

“Being injured sucks and not playing’s brutal,’’ said Vesey, who added that this was the longest time he’s ever missed because of injury. “It’s tough to not be out there with your teammates. It felt like a long time, but it’s good to be back.’’

Vesey, who suffered a lower-body injury in a practice during training camp and was placed on LTIR two days before the Oct. 9 regular-season opener, played 10 shifts in his return to action for a total of eight minutes and 28 seconds. He recorded two shots on goal, had one hit and one takeaway and was part of a fourth line — with center Sam Carrick and rookie left wing Adam Edstrom — that had another good game.

“I felt a little rusty,’’ Vesey said. “I probably need a couple games to get my legs back. But overall, I mean, I thought our line was pretty good, and [Edstrom] got a goal, we had quite a few chances, and hopefully we can just keep building on that.’’

All season, the fourth line of Edstrom, Carrick and whoever was playing right wing — Jonny Brodzinski, Matt Rempe or Vesey — has impressed Peter Laviolette with its direct, physical play and its ability to get pucks behind the opposing defense and then keep possession in the offensive zone. And with Vesey now on the line, Laviolette has the option of using the fourth line as a checking line.

“They take it out of our end, they put it down to the offensive zone and they stay with it,’’ Laviolette said. “So yeah, I think there’s potential there for that.’’

Vesey, 31, said he would relish being used in a checking role against other teams’ top lines, as the fourth line was at times last season.

“In theory, it’s great if we can go against one of their top lines,’’ he said. “I think it can kind of shift the matchups within the game and give us more favorable matchups sometimes. I think we did it a little bit. We went against [Bo] Horvat’s line a few times, starting in our ‘D’ zone, and we had really good shifts. So I think that’s a goal for us to become that [checking] line, and hopefully we can keep building and get there.’’

But even if he is playing the role of a checking-line forward, Laviolette believes Vesey can chip in offensively. He was an offensive star in college who was picked by Nashville in the third round of the 2012 draft, and he won the Hobey Baker Award as a senior at Harvard before signing with the Rangers as an unrestricted free agent in 2016. Last season, Vesey had 13 goals and 13 assists in 80 games.

“Jimmy is a veteran player who’s, through the course of his lifetime, put up a lot of points, and I think through the course of his stay in the NHL, has learned how to do a lot of different things other than to put up points,’’ Laviolette said. “But that doesn’t mean that he still can’t contribute offensively. I believe that he can.’’

By Colin Stephenson

colin.stephenson@newsday.comColinSNewsday

Colin Stephenson covers the Rangers for Newsday. He has spent more than two decades covering the NHL and just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.