Jack Roslovic’s dropoff means Rangers’ shuffling still unfinished

Given the opportunity by a generous journalist to frame Sunday’s hea🅺lthy scratch for Jack Roslovic 15 games into💮 his Rangers career as, “Just a rotation thing?” head coach Peter Laviolette seized the moment by affirming it as, “just a rotation thing.”

Which represents a funny way to say, “a ben༒ching.”

It is not Laviolet🎃te’s way to call out players in public. There may not have been a single time this first season behind the New York bench when the coach has point♔ed a finger — or directed a pointed message — at one of his players.

He sure wasn’t about to start with Roslovic, who went from a stabilizing influence on the right with Chris Kreider and Mika Zibanejad to a perceived liability and had taken a seat through large swatches of Friday’s 4-3 victory in Detroit before watching this 5-2 Garden victory over the Habs in street clothes.

Laviolette has talked about how having 13 healthy forwards on the roster has tasked him with making a personnel call every game. The coach has said that matchups might be a part of the equation in attempting to define the club’s most formidable lineup entering the first𒁏 game of the first round of the playoffs.

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But that was generally inferred as, ultimately, the decision distilled to whether to dress Matt Rempe or to go with Jonny Brodzinski as the 12th forward. Only the most literal-minded deduced Laviolette truly thought that 22-year-old Will Cuylle needed a rest a month before the playoffs when he came out of the lineup as a healthy scratch against the Panthers on March 23.

The hierarchy was under no illusion that they, by obtaining Roslovic from the Jackets at the March 8 deadline in exchange for a 2026 third- or fourth-rounder, were completing GAG Line Redux. I don’t think anyone ever thought that Roslovic would become Rod Gilbert to Chris Kreider’s and Mika Zibanejad’s 🃏Vic Hadfield and Jean Ratelle.

There was, however, the sense that the temp position on the right of the BFFs that had been filled at different tim꧃es earlier in the year by Kaapo Kakko, Blake Wheeler, Brodzinski, Cuylle and Jimmy Vese🥀y had been filled and that was an area with which Laviolette and the staff would no longer have to concern themselves.

And Roslovic initially did bring speed and hockey IQ as a complementary addition to the unit. His effectiveness had diminished over the last week or so, however. He was not strong enough on the puck or responsible enough, with or without it, on the defe⛄nsive side. The unit was listing again, even if not Roslovic’s faulꦚt. By Friday, Kakko, Barclay Goodrow and Jimmy Vesey were taking turns in his place after a particularly delinquent defensive-zone shift cost a goal in Detroit.

And on Sunday, it was Vesey lining up in that spot when the Rangers kept charging to the finish line with their eighth win in nine games. You will recall, of course, that it is hardly the first 🌱time the versatile Harvard product has stepped into that top-six role.

Indeed, Vesey was Laviolette’s first choice to assume that position after Wheeler went down with his season-ending lower-b𝓀ody injury on Feb. 15, 🌸the previous time the Canadiens were in town for the contest ahead of the outdoor game against the Islanders at 💟MetLife.

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A couple of waves of media folks approaඣched Vesey at his locker after the outdoor practice two days ahead of the match. He waღs asked about his chemistry with Zibanejad and Kreider, with whom he’d played 17 times the previous season for then head coach Gerard Gallant. Vesey, accustomed to being shifted up and down in the lineup, answered all questions politely.

And knowingly.

For when No. 26 was done with his time in the๊ spotlight, he looked up and said to no one in particular: “You can check with me again in about two weeks.”

By that time, as Vesey foresaw, he was back in the bottom-six after five games at the top. His value transcends his 13-13-26 stat line. He can play up top; he can kill penalties; he can play a matchup role. Those were hi༒s jobs in this one. All of them.

Vesey was brilliant against the Habs, triggering Zibanejad and Kreider to one of their best shared nights of the year, the line finishing with an overwhelming edge in attempts and shot share while compiling an xGF rate of 82.97 percent in 10:54 while getting a goal from Zibanejad. Vesey was also intermittently part of a checking unit with Goodrow and Brodzinski, on for an xGF ofꦦ 64.37 in 3:25.

“Obviously [Vesey] can play with anyone and we’ve been with him💜 for some time. There’s familiarity,” said Zibanejad, who scored once apiece on the power 🍌play and at five-on-five. “We were hunting.

“He’s a good skater. He makes a lot of good plays — a lot of the right plays at the right times. He was great today 🌱and I though🧔t our line was very good.”

There are four games to go, four more dress rehearsals. Chances are that Laviolette will give Roslovic the opportunity to prove he was paying attention on this Sunday where ꧅Zibaneꦐjad scored his third goal at five-on-five since Christmas.

“Solar eclipse🌼🦩 [Monday],” Zibanejad said. “Another rarity.”