Groin injury keeps iron man Girardi off ice

WASHINGTON — When Dan Girardi was younger, more foolish and compiling an astonishing string in which he missed only two of a possible 791 games (including playoffs) because of injury from the time of his NHL debut on Jan. 27, 2000, through Dec. 12, 2015, the Rangers’ alternate captain might have tried to play through this groin issue too. But not now.

“You’ve got to know your body and yourself,” Girardi said before the Blueshirts’ 4-2 victory over the Capitals on Saturday. “It’s a long year and I certainly don’t want to be battling this for no reason when we have healthy D who can play. … You have to smarten up a little bit and realize where you are in your career.”

Girardi, the embodiment of the “it’s only pain” ethos, who played the second half of last season with a cracked kneecap after sitting out only five games last December with the injury, missed his third straight game with the groin pull he sustained during the second period in St. Louis on Oct. 15.

“I skated up the ice and it was, ‘Oops, something happened,’ ” the 32year-old said after a 35-minute morn- ing session on the ice with healthy scratch Dylan McIlrath and backup netminder Antti Raanta. “All I know is that it hurt.”

After skating for the second consecutive day, the defenseman said that he felt, “Pretty good”

“I’ll see how I feel later and [Sunday] and evaluate it from there,” he said. “Day by day.”

The Blueshirts are home Sunday night to face the Coyotes, but it seems unlikely Girardi would rejoin them for that one. Coach Alain Vigneault generally prefers that an injured player participate fully in practice be- fore restoring him to active duty.

Vigneault will face a choice once Girardi is ready, perhaps Wednesday when the Bruins come to the Garden. The coach could insert Girardi on the right and move Nick Holden to his natural left side and sit Brady Skjei or he simply could substitute Girardi for righty Adam Clendening, the second power play point man who got just 9:55 against the Caps.

Clendening played 2:41 in the third and had just one shift for 38 seconds over the final 9:58. His third-pair partner, Skjei, played 10:50, 2:57 in the third.