Vitali Kravtsov to miss the Rangers' next two games

GREENBURGH, N.Y. — One game in. One man down. One likely to return relatively soon.

Welcome to life in the NHL.

During Wednesday's practice at the MSG Training Center, the Rangers announced rookie right wing Vitali Kravtsov will not travel with the team for Thursday and Friday’s games in Minnesota and Winnipeg after sustaining an upper-body injury against the Lightning in Tuesday's season opener.

Kravtsov only skated three first-period shifts totaling 1:28 in the 3-1 win. On his third and final shift, the rookie was pinned against the boards by Lightning defenseman Victor Hedman while half bent over. Shortly thereafter he left the game,  and he did not practice Wednesday.

A team spokesperson said Kravtsov could return for either the Ducks game on Monday night or San Jose on Thursday, both at the Garden. Coach Gerard Gallant said it was “definitely possible” before adding, “I haven’t got an update yet. I just was told he’s not coming.”

During the roughly half-hour practice session, Alexis Lafreniere skated on the second line with Vincent Trocheck and Artemi Panarin, and Dryden Hunt slotted in on the fourth line with Ryan Carpenter and Ryan Reaves.

Kravtsov’s injury forced Gallant to modify his line combinations by moving Lafreniere off the left side of Filip Chytil’s line and onto the right side of Trocheck’s. The first overall pick in the 2020 NHL Draft finished plus-1 with four shots on goal and four hits in 17:28 of ice time. Perhaps his most important play was driving to the net on Mika Zibanejad’s shorthanded goal 3:25 into the second period. By driving to the far post, Lafreniere forced defenseman Mikhail Sergachev and goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy to account for him, which opened a lane for Zibanejad to cut to the net.

Gallant did not think it would be an issue when asked if he was concerned if Chytil might be negatively affected without his normal left wing.

“No concern at all,” Gallant said. “You do the best you can with what you got . . . I was thinking about putting [Lafreniere] up there for quite a bit of the training camp, to be honest with you. It doesn’t affect that. Now if you ask [Chytil], maybe he said yeah, but I don’t think so. When I put [Jimmy] Vesey and [Barclay] Goodrow with [Chytil], I thought they played great. I really did. It was early in the game [when we] lose Kravtsov and you got to adjust. I think everybody just did real well.”

While the Rangers will not have Kravtsov, they will be graced with the presence of left wing Sammy Blais, who will make the trip, Gallant said, and it seems likely he will make his season debut shortly.

Blais, limited to 14 games last season because of a torn right ACL, was injured in the preseason finale, a 3-1 loss to the Islanders at UBS Arena last Saturday. Since then he has been listed as day-to-day. Blais practiced Wednesday, wearing the yellow, non-contact jersey.