The Rangers made a short-term roster decision on Victor Mancini.
The 22-year-old defenseman was sent down to AHL Hartford on Wednesday and veteran defenseman Chad Ruhwedel was brought up in his place.
Mancini had been staring at a fifth straight healthy scratch against the Sharks at the Garden on Thursday ahead of a weeklong four-game trip out west.
While the Blueshirts are in Seattle, Vancouver, Calgary and Edmonton, the AHL Wolf Pack have five games on their schedule from Nov. 15 through Nov. 24.
“Dru and I talk on a daily basis and evaluate everything and certainly development is a big part of players,” head coach Peter Laviolette said, referring to GM Chris Drury. “Those are the conversations we have, not just about [Mancini] but in general about a lot of the young players we have here.”
Mancini, who demanded a spot off an eye-opening camp, played the first seven games and nine of the first 10, primarily paired with Zac Jones.
But Ryan Lindgren’s return to active duty shuffled the deck.
Mancini, who has a 58.33 goals-for rate (7-5) despite a 33.46 Corsi and 33.46 xGF, had become the designated healthy scratch while the Jones-Schneider tandem thrived.
Laviolette all but confirmed that the team will revert to the K’Andre Miller-Adam Fox pair that was intact for the first 10 games of the season while Lindgren skates with Jacob Trouba.
“That’s the way we came in [for practice],” Laviolette said. “The way we were playing at the start of the season kind of got derailed by a game or two so we made a change and wanted to give that a little bit of time to see how it looked.
“Leaving the [Winnipeg game], we made the decision to come back and look at it this way.”
The question, though, is whether the Jones-Schneider tandem will get second-pair assignments off a run of impressive performances.
Indeed, the duo has not been on for a goal-against in 66:34 of ice time, having been on for six Rangers goals.
They have a 62.56 xGF.
The right-handed Schneider opened the season moving to his off side to partner with Trouba on a top-four matchup pair. The tandem was on for seven goals for and three against with a 58.88 xGF.
Schneider received an average ice time of 19:08 the first seven games, but since shifting back to the third pair, Schneider’s time has dipped to 15:24 per, nearly 4:00 less.
He somehow was only on for 13:22 against the Jets on Tuesday, his lowest complement of the season by a full minute, despite the fact that he and Jones were on for both of the Blueshirts’ five-on-five goals against the Jets with an 80.40 xGF.
“They’re probably warranting more minutes,” Laviolette said. “They’re playing pretty well right now, I thought Jones was good again and Schneids was good.
“[Schneider’s] minutes were down. They could be up a little bit.”