Rangers' Brett Howden out for season with broken foot

If the New York Rangers are going to pull off a late-season miracle and make the playoffs, it’ll be without Brett Howden. The young forward suffered a broken foot Thursday night and will be out for the rest of the season. The team also announced that Chris Kreider and Ryan Lindgren are out on a day-to-day basis and recalled Morgan Barron and Tarmo Reunanen from the AHL.

It’s not really like Howden was helping the cause anyway, as the 23-year-old has had a brutal season. Through 42 games he has scored just a single goal and has just seven points despite lots of early-season opportunities. As his play has declined so has his ice time, with Howden averaging fewer than 12 minutes over the last 15 games. That’s a far cry from the 15 he got as a rookie, but it continues a downward trend as the Rangers add more offensive talent to the roster.

Originally selected 27th overall by the Tampa Bay Lightning in 2016, Howden has struggled to score since entering the league. He has just 16 goals over a 178-game NHL career (plus three scoreless postseason contests last year), not nearly enough to be considered for the team’s top nine. Always more of a playmaker first at the junior level, even that ability seems to have vanished from Howden’s game. Now as he deals with an injury, he’ll go into a contract negotiation with the Rangers without much leverage.

It will be interesting to see where New York takes things for the young forward. The team has many other young forwards pushing for playing time, including Barron, who has been excellent at the minor league level. The 22-year-old was a sixth-round afterthought in 2017, but Barron developed his game at Cornell and has 21 points in 21 games for the Hartford Wolf Pack this season — his first in professional hockey. Standing an imposing 6-4, 220 pounds, Barron provides all the size required to be a bottom-six forward while also adding some scoring touch around the net. Don’t expect him to reach point-per-game production to the NHL, but he doesn’t need much to pass the level Howden had been bringing this season.