That hadn’t been the case recently, though, at least not to most folks’ memory. Not until Peter Laviolette left the 33-year-old Kreider out of the lineup that faced the Devils on Monday, in the Rangers’ final game before the NHL’s holiday break.

Day after day, the severity of their situation seemingly does nothing but weigh the Rangers down. Monday afternoon’s 5-0 disaster against the Devils at Prudential Center was no outlier.

Chris Kreider was a surprising healthy scratch for the New York Rangers on Monday afternoon against the New Jersey Devils. What exactly does this mean for his future in New York? Rangers general manager Chris Drury sent a league-wide memo a couple of weeks ago,

Chris Kreider finally got the opportunity to speak out about getting scratched from the lineup during the New York Rangers’ Monday afternoon matchup against the New Jersey Devils. The Rangers had their first practice since the holiday break as Kreider was asked about his benching and he certainly did not shy away from the topic.

Chris Kreider, a healthy scratch for the first time since John Tortorella’s reign behind the bench ended following 2012-13, is no victim.