New York Rangers Forward Steps Away From Team for Personal Reasons

The NHL regular season is drawing to a close, with every team in the league down to their last few weeks before the Stanley Cup playoffs.

With only eleven games left in their schedule, the New York Rangers are doing anything they can to stay alive in the Eastern Conference Wild Card race, including calling up former Stanley Cup champion Nicolas Aube-Kubel from the AHL.

However, with only eleven games left in the regular season on their schedule, not even the New York Rangers are still in a very precarious position.

As of the start of March 25th, they are fourth in the race just one point behind the Montreal Canadiens, but even with their 5-3 victory against the Vancouver Canucks on Saturday, they are 3-5-2 in their last 10 games.

To make matters worse, only two of the games ahead of them are against teams currently below them in the standings: the Anaheim Ducks and San Jose Sharks, both coming up at the end of the week.

However, with their matchup against the current eighth in the league Los Angeles Kings coming up tonight, one bottom-six player may not be available to the team for a crucial game.

New York Rangers forward Sam Carrick has had to take a step back from the team for undisclosed personal reasons, opening in the possibility of him being off his first game with the team.

Since joining the Rangers at the start of the season, Carrick has scored six goals and recorded twelve assists in 71 games, puling in a 2.6 point share.

Though New York may be able to play without the 33-year-old forward on the ice, it may not be enough to pull in two points crucial to keeping their Wild Card hopes alive.