The Rangers have been dipping into their depth pool for quite some time now, but the recent loss of Kevin Rooney and now Greg McKegg has the organization reaching even deeper.
Head coach Gerard Gallant said McKegg won’t play on the Rangers’ four-city road trip, which began in Winnipeg on Sunday, due to personal reasons. Without Rooney, who was put on injured reserve last week after sustaining an undisclosed upper-body injury, or McKegg, the Rangers have turned to Morgan Barron and Jonny Brodzinski.
Barron, the Rangers’ sixth-round pick in the 2017 NHL Draft, has skated in 18 games with the Blueshirts over the past two seasons and is the more familiar face of the two. After McKegg missed Friday’s win over the Devils, Brodzinski drew into the Rangers’ lineup for the sixth time this season and just the 11th time since he signed with the franchise as a free agent in October 2020.
The Rangers will need both players to fill out the bottom six, but Brodzinski will also assume McKegg’s penalty-killing responsibilities.
“When he came up with us before when he was on the California trip, he played well,” head coach Gerard Gallant said of Brodzinski before the Rangers took on the Jets at Canada Life Centre on Sunday night. “He works hard, he got some experience. He does a good job. That’s part of our NHL today. Right now, we’ve got a lot of guys out, so guys get an opportunity. The last time he came up he played well.”
“Obviously, we stay in close contact with our coaching staff down there and Gord [Murphy] and [Kris Knoblauch] worked together last year in Hartford, so we get a lot of help from them. They talk about it and say what the player is all about. So we trust them.”
Brodzinski stepped in and played 2:39 on the penalty kill on Friday against the Devils, who did not score on any of their three power plays. Considering he has played big shorthanded minutes with the Rangers’ AHL affiliate in Hartford, Brodzinski seemed comfortable in that role. He mentioned that both teams have similar penalty-killing systems.
The Rangers do have other more experienced player options for the PK, but Gallant wants to spread the workload a bit throughout his lineup.
“It’s not preferred, it’s not getting too much ice time for different players and wearing your top players down,” Gallant said. “It’s a whole game plan, it’s not because he’s better than [Ryan] Strome or better than this guy, it’s about how I manage my bench.”
Brodzinski cited the Rangers’ winning culture and the fact that it’s a young team as reasons why he wanted to re-sign with the organization. Signing a two-year deal also meant he could give some stability to his wife and two-year-old daughter, which Brodzinski said meant a lot.
Having played on the wing and at center during his brief tenure with the Rangers, Brodzinski said it doesn’t matter where he is in the lineup. He noted that he’s played a majority of his career at right wing, but that he can play on either wing and in the middle after bouncing around between those positions over the last three years.
“I had a few years in LA, where I was up and down for a long time, never quite cracked the NHL lineup,” Brodzinski said. “Mentally, I was in a state where I was just being in the American League and being a leader, having a little bit of structure for my wife and daughter was a good thing.
“But at the same time, I always want to play in the NHL. That’s a thing I’ve always wanted to do and to be an NHL regular is a hard thing to do and that’s what I’ve always strived to do.”