Roughly two-and-a-half hours before the scheduled faceoff for their St. Patrick’s Day game with the Philadelphia Flyers at Madison Square Garden Wednesday, the Rangers announced that their entire bench coaching staff – head coach David Quinn and assistants Jacques Martin, David Oliver and Greg Brown – would be unavailable for the game due to the NHL’s COVID-19 protocol.
Maybe the staff should take a night off more often.
With Hartford Wolf Pack coaches Kris Knoblauch and Gord Murphy, and Rangers associate GM Chris Drury behind the bench for the Rangers, Mika Zibanejad exploded for three goals and three assists, and Pavel Buchnevich, who came off the team’s COVID-19 list and went right into the lineup, had two goals and two assists, as the Rangers thoroughly embarrassed the Flyers, 9-0, in front of a national TV audience.
