DALLAS — Rangers coach Gerard Gallant went with 11 forwards and seven defensemen for the second time in the past week in their 7-4 win over the Stars on Saturday night at American Airlines Center.
The main reason for structuring the lineup that way, he said, was to manage minutes for some key defensemen. Gallant also alluded to one defenseman being “bumped up,” which prompted the coach to dress an extra to alleviate some of the defensive core’s workload.
“We talk about minutes for some of our key defensemen, and that’s what we thought,” he said. “That’s the main reason we went with it.”
Libor Hajek served as the seventh defenseman, as he did when the Rangers lined up the same way in the 4-1 win in Winnipeg at the start of the road trip, skating a team-low 5:28 over eight shifts on Saturday. A bulk of Hajek’s ice time came next to Adam Fox, but he also skated alongside Braden Schneider a bit as well.
The Rangers have run their top two D pairs ragged and it’s shown in recent games, particularly Fox and Ryan Lindgren. After the two had a tough night in St. Louis, finishing a minus-four, Gallant evidently wanted to take some of the pressure off with some more bodies on the back end.
Still, Fox and Lindgren remained together for a majority of the game. Fox led all Rangers defensemen with 22:40, while Lindgren logged 16:47. Lindgren’s 16:19 on Thursday against the Blues was a season low.
Lindgren may be the defenseman Gallant referred to who is banged up. On March 2 against the Blues, Lindgren needed to be helped off the ice by goalie Igor Shesterkin. Gallant went with 11 forwards and seven defensemen for the first time in the following game.
As a result of going with 11 forwards, usual fourth-liner Ryan Reaves was a healthy scratch for the first time this season. Gallant said sitting Reaves was a coach’s decision.
“We wanted to change some things up, that’s all,” Gallant said. “Nothing he did wrong, that’s just what we wanted to go with.”
The Rangers’ seven goals matched their highest output of the season, tying the seven they scored against the Coyotes on Jan. 22.
Saturday marked the Rangers’ final game of their last four-city road trip of the season. The Rangers only have nine road games left on their regular-season schedule. They won’t have to travel far for four of those games, with two against the Devils in Newark, one on Long Island against the Islanders and another in Boston.