Goaltender Igor Shesterkin and defenseman Adam Fox have continued skating on their own, but head coach Mike Sullivan didn’t think that their return to practicing with the rest of the Rangers at full capacity would be “imminent.”
Sullivan told The Post after the Blueshirts practiced in Tarrytown on Sunday that their pair of stars had skated “probably upwards of” four or five times.
Shesterkin has been on injured reserve with a lower-body injury and hasn’t played since Jan. 5, while Fox landed on long-term injured reserve with an upper-body injury and hasn’t played since that same overtime loss to the Mammoth.
Shesterkin is eligible to return, but Fox can’t get activated until the Jan. 31 game against the Penguins.
“They’ve been on the ice a handful of times at this point,” Sullivan said as the Rangers prepared to face the Bruins on Monday at the Garden. “They skated [Sunday] morning, so they’re making progress.”
A full return to practice would mark the final step needed for the Rangers to get their $92 million goaltender and their former Norris Trophy winner back into the lineup.
Without Shesterkin, backup Jonathan Quick has gone 0-5-0 with a .795 save percentage and 23 goals allowed across five starts, while Spencer Martin, who was recalled from AHL Hartford, has gone 1-2-0 with an .881 save percentage in three starts — while also taking over twice when Quick was pulled.
And Fox’s absence — his second extended one of the season — forced the Blueshirts to bump Braden Schneider to the top defensive pairing alongside Vladislav Gavrikov and to shift Gavrikov into Fox’s spot on the top power-play unit.
The Blueshirts struggled mightily with the man advantage when Fox missed 14 games due to a shoulder injury earlier in the year, but they’ve gone 5-for-19 in the eight games since he sustained the latest injury.
Sam Carrick’s job isn’t to score. But in the immediate aftermath of the loss to the Sabres on Jan. 8, Carrick rued his missed chances on offense and was critical of himself for not doing enough to contribute production.
During the Rangers loss to the Sharks on Friday, the fourth-line center collected his third goal of the season and his second across their last six games, an early sign of his starting to turn those opportunities into occasional goals.
“He does a lot of the thankless jobs that help teams win,” Sullivan said. “They don’t necessarily show up on the scoresheet all the time, but he does a lot of the little things, the subtleties of the game that add up to winning. He’s physical. He sticks up for our guys. He takes faceoffs. He’s part of our penalty kill. He’s a momentum guy. He’s a great teammate.”
“And so a player like [him] is able to chip in a few goals, it certainly is a boost of confidence for him, but everybody’s thrilled for him because of all the thankless jobs he does on a daily basis.”
