KANATA, Ont. – Want a definition of desperate times? How about the Ranger$ being the baseball equivalent of four games out of a playoff spot with 21 games to go, needing to catch both Montreal and Tampa Bay?
And as desperate times call for desperate measures, the Blueshirts may well call on Pavel Bure to make his return here tonight against the Senators after a 31-game absence. What’s more, with Dan Blackburn getting the start tonight following his nifty relief outing in Buffalo on Saturday, it appears as if there’s a competition for the team’s No. 1 goaltending job.
“I know Pavel is really itchy to get in, and he looked great in practice,” Glen Sather, still upset over the previous night’s attention-deficit-disordered 5-4 loss to the Sabres, said yesterday. “He’s medically cleared to play and has been for some time, but I need to hear from Pavel that he’s confident enough in his knee to go.
“We’ll talk after the morning skate, but even if he doesn’t play in this one, it’s safe to expect that he’ll be back sometime on this trip.”
Bure, who has been out since suffering a sprained right knee MCL on Dec. 6 and has been rehabbing since the twin arthroscopies he underwent 10 days after that (his second right knee ‘scope within three months), skated yesterday on a line with Alex Kovalev on the left and – looky here – prodigal pivot Eric Lindros in the middle. Mark Messier, who did not practice, is doubtful for tonight’s match after having suffered a jammed thumb early in Saturday’s second period.
“If Mark can’t go, I imagine Eric will be at center; he might play there, anyway,” Sather, who had fired broadsides at the slumping No. 88 a night earlier, said. “I never said I wouldn’t put him back in the middle when I was asked, and I never said that I would bench him.
“Look, Eric has to play better. They all have to play better. Why can’t I say that?”
Blackburn, beaten only on Curtis Brown’s backhand off a two-on-one short-handed dash of the 22 Sabres shots he faced in 37:15 of work, certainly was better than Dunham on Saturday. So the 20-year-old sophomore is going tonight. If he merits it, he just might play in Minnesota on Wednesday.
Dunham was off-balance and unsteady from the start Saturday. Hence, he was pulled after surrendering four goals on 10 shots in 22:10 to continue a disturbing back-to-back trend. In three such appearances as a Ranger, Dunham is 0-3, having allowed 12 goals on 69 shots in 102:44 (7.01 GAA, .826 save percentage), pulled twice early in the second. Of course, the Rangers are 0-6-2 in their last eight second nights of back-to-backs, regardless of the goaltender’s identity.