Don’t expect Henrik Lundqvist to pack it up early

Alain Vigneault let out quite a hardy chuckle when asked if considered shutting down Rangers goalie Henrik Lundqvist for the eight remaining games of the regular season.

“You go tell that to Hank,” the coach said with a laugh, as the famously competitive Lundqvist had suffered from some head/neck/back pain after a collision during the 5-3 loss to the Blue Jackets on Tuesday night that kept him from dressing for Thursday night’s 4-3 loss to the Flyers. “Good luck. I’m not doing that. Not a chance I’m doing that.”

After a few days off, Lundqvist returned to practice with the team Friday in Tarrytown. He still wasn’t planning on dressing for Saturday night’s Garden match against the Sabres, when rookie Alexandar Georgiev is expected to start with Ondrej Pavelec backing him up. But Lundqvist was getting better and said he hoped to return to game action soon.

“You want to be here, you want to battle, you want to play games, compete,” Lundqvist said about his team, which is more than likely going to miss the playoffs for the first time in seven seasons. “We’re not in the situation we want to be in, but you have to see every game as an opportunity to compete and try to get a win. That’s a good feeling when you win games and compete together.”

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The Rangers organization still wants to see exactly what it has in the 22-year-old Georgiev, set to make his eighth career start, while still finding some game action for Lundqvist. It is unclear whether Lundqvist had decided if he’s going to play for Team Sweden in the World Championships, which start May 4 in Denmark.

“You know what, as soon as he’s ready to play — and it might be a couple more days, it might be longer, I don’t know — but he’s going to get some games,” Vigneault said. “He wants to play. And we want to see Alex, so there’s that fine balancing act there. That’s what we’re going to do.”

Assistant general manager Chris Drury is set to go to Hartford this weekend to watch first-round picks Lias Andersson (No. 7 overall) and Filip Chytil (No. 21) play for the Wolf Pack, and then decide when they’re going to join the Rangers down the stretch.

Andersson could have played nine games with the Rangers before burning the first year of his entry-level deal, but is going to stay with Hartford for at least Saturday’s home match against Hershey. Chytil only can play seven games because he had a quick two-game NHL debut after making the team out of training camp before being sent down.

From practice, it seems as if Peter Holland is going to draw back in as the fourth-line center, while David Desharnais will be a scratch. It also seems as if Vigneault is going to keep Ryan Spooner at center, this time with Vladislav Namestnikov on the left wing and Pavel Buchnevich on the right.

Either way, Vigneault wants more production from some group other than his red-hot top line of Chris Kreider, Mika Zibanejad and Jesper Fast.

“[Other lines] need to spend more time in the other end and they need to generate more,” Vigneault said.