from Larry Brooks of the New York Post,

Ryan McDonagh, the team’s most indispensable player other than Henrik Lundqvist, is going to be out for an extended period of time after suffering a separated shoulder going into the rear wall on a tough but clean Evander Kane check at 11:46 of the first period.

It’s the same shoulder McDonagh injured last year on the Alexandre Burrows hit in Vancouver on April 1 that sidelined the defenseman for the final five games of the regular season and probably would have kept him out longer at another time of the year.

Meanwhile, Kevin Klein already had left the game at the 3:12 mark of the first, suffering from the after-effects of blocking a Jacob Trouba shot just 38 seconds into the match. Klein, whose ailment initially has been diagnosed as a “foot contusion,” will undergo an MRI exam on Sunday. So will McDonagh.

But with the Blueshirts already playing without Dan Boyle, who sustained a broken hand in the season opener, and John Moore, who has four games remaining on his suspension for Monday’s head shot against Erik Haula, the Blueshirts’ blue line hasn’t looked thinner since the bad old days of Roman Ndur and Chris Tamer.

more