1:59PM: David Quinn met with the media after the morning skate and said (NYR):

• Changes at forward, “McKegg is in and Lias is out.”
• Who is out on D, Lindgren.”
• Why are Lias and Lindgren out, “I thought Lias had a little bit of drop in play the other night, 20-year old kid has had a good run here, played some pretty good hockey but this was the choice we made. I don’t feel great about sitting Lindgren, I think he has done some good things but I wanted to get Staalsie back in, he deserves to get back in and looking at the rest of the D-corp, I felt that was the move we were going to make.”
• On Mika, “took another step forward today, he’s getting closer. Won’t come on the trip tomorrow but getting closer.”
• Has his injury lasted longer than expected, “no, again, every day is a new answer to how he is feeling. I didn’t really have a timetable set and when he’s healthy he will be ready to go.”
• Where will Kakko play, “we haven’t decided that yet.”
• Will McKegg play center, “yes, McKegg will play center.”
• What about Kakko’s game did you like against Ottawa, “he’s playing with a lot more swagger, much more of a pace to his game. He’s getting into battles as opposed to just being around them. Usually when you have that type of talent and do those things, you are going to be productive offensively. I never worry about him offensively, we need to focus on what he is doing shift in and shift out and what his approach is in each shift. When he approaches it that way he is going to be productive because he has that talent.”
• Will he get better as he plays more, “without question, especially at this level.”
• What do you want to see from Staal, “just a little bit quicker, a little bit more assertiveness and a little bit more physicality. Everything was okay but I think there is another level he can get to and he knows that and has worked hard at it this past week and I expect him to have a good night.”
• Will he play with Fox, “yes.”
• What do you expect from Henrik, “I expect a good night out of him, that is why he is in there. I think he’s done a good job of adapting, I think he’s had a good year and a good job adapting to a reduced workload that, the way the league is going and the situation we are in, that he will benefit from it long-term. I think he has done a good job adapting to a reduced workload.”
• Will you split the goalies for the back to back, “Benny and I talked about that, we have no decision yet. We will see how tonight goes, see how the game develops. There is a chance he could play tomorrow.”
• How do you draw the line with physicality, “that is managing your emotions and gearing your energy in the right direction. One of the things I thought happened the other night was we geared our emotions and physicality in a negative way. Physicality ha to happen between whistles, not after it and I thought we let our emotions get the best of us. It was a frustrating night because we got off to such a great start and continued to do the things we did against Tampa and Nashville and it was like a switch went off, we go up 1-0 and I could tell, the very next shift after we went up 1-0, you could feel a little bit different approach to it, even though we were in the offensive zone and may have had a scoring chance, it had a different feel to it and then the whole game flipped and we didn’t handle it very well, that is for sure. You’ve got to be able to handle momentum changes in a game and we didn’t do a good job of that the other night.”

11:33AM: Lias Andersson and Ryan Lindgren will be healthy scratches in tonight’s Rangers game against the Red Wings. (NYR)

Greg McKegg will come in for Lias Andersson and Marc Staal will return to the Rangers lineup for Lindgren. (NYR)

Mika Zibanejad will miss both tonight’s game and tomorrow’s game as he recovers from his upper body/neck injury. (Cyrgalis)

Henrik Lundqvist will start for the Rangers, his first appearance since being pulled against Boston on October 27th.

Andersson was scratched thrice last season when he was with the Rangers.

This season, Andersson has one assist in 12 games, a minus three rating, 7 shots on goal and is averaging 10:05 per game while skating almost entirely on the Rangers fourth line.

David Quinn said last week that he felt Andersson played his best game of the season against Tampa Bay.

On 10/23. Quinn said “Lias has to play faster from play to play, he tends to kind of stand up after he does something, not a lot of continuation in his play. He knows that and we’ve talked about it and those are the kind of things he will have to do if he’s going to get more minutes and responsibility.”