No one comes up

So, on the injury front, Lundqvist practiced today and should play tonight, saying he feels better. Drury had a "bad day" at practice today, and is basically ruled out for the next couple of games, at least. I expect that to continue for a long while, before we're sure his head is okay, but they rarely ask me. Drury is apparently unhappy about this situation. Duh. Lisin's cracked foot bone is not keeping him out, he is wearing some kind of crazy special foot shield inside his skate and is playing. Brashear has apparently shaken off the wrinkles and is joining the team.

Where does that leave us? Well, for John Tortorella, it leaves us with enough "NHL bodies" to make a team, without calling anyone up. From what I can piece together, we'll be going with something that approximates the following:

Lisin - Prospal - Gaborik
Higgins - Anisimov - Callahan
Avery - Boyle - Kotalik
Brashear - Voros - Byers

I could be mistaken about Higgins versus Avery and Callahan versus Kotalik; assigning them to the second and third lines was based on my best guesses, everything else is based on reports from today's practice. But my guesses seem pretty reasonable, too.

Finally, in "yeah, what he said!" news, Lundqvist is actually starting to talk about how maybe it's not so great that he gets run over all the goddamn time. From Larry Brooks today (which unrelatedly concludes with some interesting statistics about a depressing second PP unit that Sean Avery can't seem to find his way onto):

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I don't think it's been as bad the last little while, but I know it's been a lot more than last year, and if it continues, of course we have to stand up and respond. As long as we get calls, I don't mind getting hit if we get power plays, but if we don't get the calls, then we have to respond to it.
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Rest assured, the Rangers will have plenty of chances in the coming weeks to respond to it. The question is not "Are people going to stop running Lundqvist?" The question is: when we continue to not get the calls, are the Rangers going to heed the cries, if not of their fans or coach or of reason itself, then of their unquestionably most valuable player game in and game out, and actually start doing something about it? If, in the wake of these injuries, we can't start to stand up for ourselves, it's going to be a very long season.

Very little of that matters presently, though, since tonight, we're only playing a Kovalchuk-less Thrashers, and Lundqvist himself is only probably playing. It's a very good opportunity, however, to see how these guys react to trying to fill the shoes of their missing peers. That's why Torts isn't bringing anyone up: he wants to see what these guys do. "Sometimes this is where you find out about some people," he eloquently explained. If we don't put forth a few big efforts here, I'd expect to see some personnel come in from Hartford within the week or two.