Buchnevich ‘back’ at it, scores for Hartford

It’s back to playing games, finally, for Pavel Buchnevich.

The 21-year-old Russian winger practiced with the Rangers on Friday and then was assigned to AHL Hartford, where he scored a goal for the Wolf Pack in their 2-1 win over Lehigh Valley. It was his first live action since Nov. 12.

Buchnevich had back and disk issues, but played in 10 of the Rangers’ first 15 games while recording four goals and eight points. Over the past seven weeks, Buchnevich has been in a program to strengthen his core.

The Rangers were off to play at Columbus on Saturday night, and after that begins their five-day bye week. The Wolf Pack have games Saturday, Sunday and Wednesday in which Buchnevich presumably will play, but Rangers coach Alain Vigneault wasn’t putting a number on how many he wanted him to play before returning to the NHL.

“We’ll take it day-by-day, game- by-game, see how he does and go from there,” Vigneault said.

Rick Nash practiced as an extra defenseman and will not play Saturday as he continues to recover from his nagging groin injury. Nash has missed 11 of the past 14 games since the initial injury on the soft ice at Barclays Center on Dec. 6.

He said he felt better Friday then he did when he first re- turned for a three-game stint from Dec. 15 through Dec. 18, but was trying to be cautious and take advantage of the bye week.

“It’s going in the right direction,” Nash said. “I think this bye week is coming at a perfect time for me.”

Defenseman Marc Staal was considered “day-to-day” with his upper-body injury, but did not practice and will miss Saturday’s game.

“I’m anxious to see how he feels when we get back from the break,” Vigneault said.

Center Mika Zibanejad is on track to rejoin the team soon after the break, as he is continues to rehab the broken leg he suffered on Nov. 20. Zibanejad skated on his own Friday morning with the expected time out of about two months nearly up.

“It will probably be a matter of getting a couple practices in,” Vigneault said, “feeling good about his conditioning and feeling good physically and mentally, and we’ll make a call from there.”