PHILADELPHIA — Alain Vigneault said he was going to talk with his assistant coaches during the Rangers’ train ride to Philadelphia on Friday afternoon to contemplate the lineup for the season finale against the Flyers on Saturday afternoon at Wells Fargo Center. It turns out they decided a couple of call-ups were in order.
So veteran winger Matt Beleskey was brought up from AHL Hartford and likely will make his Rangers debut, along with 24-year-old Steven Fogarty, the former Notre Dame captain who has yet to play a game in the NHL.
Beleskey, 29, came as part of the deal that sent Rick Nash to the Bruins on Feb. 25. He had been toiling in the AHL most of the season after clearing waivers, partially because he is in the third year of a five-year, $19 million deal that carries an annual salary-cap hit of $3.8 million. The veteran of 472 career NHL games went straight to the Wolf Pack, and he had five goals and seven assists during 35 AHL games this season split between Providence and Hartford.
The 6-foot, 203-pounder was a fourth-round pick (No. 122 overall) of the Ducks in 2006, and his best statistical season came with Anaheim in 2014-15 when he scored 22 goals and put up 32 points, adding eight goals in 16 playoffs games.
Fogarty was the Rangers’ third-round pick (No. 72 overall) in 2011. The 6-foot-3, 209-pounder was in the midst of his second full season with the Wolf Pack, putting up nine goals and 19 points in 60 games.
Goalie Henrik Lundqvist was named Team MVP as voted on by the media, with so few other options available. It’s the ninth time in 12 seasons Lundqvist has won the award, his most recent being 2015-16, with seven in a row from 2006-07 through 2012-13.
Lundqvist, 36, is set to start on Saturday and takes in a career-worst single-season goals-against average with 2.95. Lundqvist had an up-and-down campaign, but some of those highs also allows him to bring in a .915 save percentage, just below his career average of .919.
Winger Jesper Fast won the Players’ Player award for the third straight year. The super-competitive and reliable two-way Swede has been shut down for the season with a groin injury before Tuesday’s 5-2 loss to the Devils in Newark.
Fast, 26, already put up career-best numbers with 13 goals and 33 points in 71 games after missing the first five games of the season following offseason hip surgery.
When Vigneault was asked on Friday what he has learned as a coach this season, he chose to sidestep.
“Ask me that same question after the game,” he said, “and I’ll have a real good answer.”
Cody McLeod did not practice on Friday, confirming his season — and likely his tenure as a Ranger — is done. The pugilistic winger is set to be an unrestricted free agent.
Mike Emrick’s “Doc’s Scrapbook” in-game mini-feature during Saturday’s Rangers-Flyers broadcast on NBC will include grainy footage of goaltender Cesare Maniago, who played parts of two seasons, 1965-67, for the Rangers, before playing most of his career for the expansion Minnesota North Stars.