A whole book could be written about the Rangers’ 2024-25 season considering all that has happened already, but new chapters just keep getting added.
The latest is headlined by the loss of Adam Fox, who was placed on injured reserve with an upper-body injury he sustained in the win over the Islanders just as the team pulled within two points of the second wild-card spot.
It’s yet another encumbrance in a campaign that’s been full of them.
In coming down to the wire on their postseason push, however, this could be the biggest obstacle of the season thus far.
“I think things — they haven’t come as easy this year,” defenseman Braden Schneider told The Post after practice at MSG Training Center on Thursday. “At the end of the day, these are the things that if you get through, you’re a stronger team because of it. We got to keep moving forward. It sucks, but we have to take what we can get and make sure we’re doing everything in our power to get the most points so when Foxy is back in our lineup, hopefully we’ve gained some ground.”
Head coach Peter Laviolette did not have a timetable for Fox’s return, but IR rules state the 27-year-old blueliner is unable to play for a minimum of seven days.
Though it is not considered a season-ending injury, the expectation is that Fox will miss a good chunk of time.
He should be able to return to the lineup before the end of the regular season, per a source.
While most of the conversation surrounding Fox this season hasn’t been the most positive — most recently getting exposed as a weak link on Team USA at the NHL’s 4 Nations Face-Off — the Rangers rely heavily on the Jericho, N.Y., native.
Not only does Fox lead all Rangers skaters with an average ice time of 23:14, but he also leads all Rangers defensemen in average power-play time (3:02), while also ranking third among active Blueshirts in shorthanded ice time (2:02).
Fox is also second on the team in points with five goals and 43 assists, behind only Artemi Panarin’s 59 points.
“Never want to see that happen, for sure,” Laviolette said. “He’s such an important part of the team. He plays so many minutes for us. Always a tough break. Now that we know that, we have an opportunity for others to step up and draw back in. Great timing, [Zac Jones] had gone down and played 25-28 minutes a game, got some game conditioning under his belt. So I thought that was really good. Comes back here, he looks good in practice. Opportunities for others to step up.”
After serving as a healthy scratch in 24 of the last 27 games, Jones is expected to be the Rangers’ next man up.
The 24-year-old just wrapped up a conditioning assignment with the team’s AHL affiliate, the Hartford Wolf Pack, in order to start working back into game shape. In two games, Jones scored a goal and collected five shots.
During practice Thursday, Jones skated on a pair with Schneider, with whom he’s lined up 17 times this season, the last time being earlier this month against the Bruins and Penguins on Feb. 5 and 7.
K’Andre Miller, who skated in a red non-contact jersey on Thursday after suffering a lower-body injury in the Isles game, took regular reps next to Will Borgen.
That left Urho Vaakanainen to switch to his offside on the right to skate with Ryan Lindgren.
“Especially at home, these are massive games,” Schneider said. “It feels like every game after the next, the next game is the biggest game, the next game is the biggest game of the year. We’ve been in that battle. It’s just making sure that we’re able to push through. I feel like we’ve done that up until this point, where we’ve crept our way back and then we kind of stop. We’ve got to work our way back up.
“So we’ve got to make sure we’re keeping the foot on the gas and we’ve got to get over that hump of making sure we keep things rolling and keep things going in the right direction.”
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