Quinn Staal’s on injury decision

As long as there are no setbacks, Marc Staal expects to be ready to rejoin the Rangers for Thursday night’s game against the Blue Jackets in Columbus. Of course, whether the veteran defenseman is put right back into the lineup — out since Nov. 9 ankle surgery — will be a decision made by coach David Quinn.

“We’ll see how these other six [defensemen] are going,” Quinn said before Staal missed his 12th straight game, a listless 4-1 loss to the Golden Knights at the Garden on Monday night. “They’ve all got to earn their keep. The ‘D’ corps has played well. It’s been a good balance with all three pairings. We’ll address that topic when we have to.”Quinn might be licking his chops to sit someone after the sluggish defensive performance against Vegas prompted him to say: “I didn’t think our ‘D’ corps was really all-in from a defending standpoint. We were way too offense driven.”Turns out that Staal’s game is predicated on defending. No one on the left side — Brady Skjei, Libor Hajek, or Ryan Lindgren — had a particularly strong game against the Golden Knights. Skjei has been better since rejoining Jacob Trouba on a relatively stable first pair, but Hajek and Lindgren would likely be up for discussion as healthy scratches.Staal started skating on his own last Tuesday, which was a good sign after what had happened. The morning after he had blocked a shot on the inside of his right ankle against the Hurricanes on Nov. 7, Staal woke up early when his wife told him to clean up after the dog. He noticed the extreme swelling around the cut, but he cleaned up the dog’s mess — no excuse — and went back to sleep.

When he woke up again, the swelling had not gone down. He went in to see the team training staff, who then sent him to the hospital, where it was clear he had an infection and had to be opened up. He was supposed to be out about two weeks.

Henrik Lundqvist made 28 saves in his seventh start in the past nine games, his 10th start (and 11th game played) in the past 14 games. He is also expected to start at home on Friday night against the Canadiens, the second leg of a back-to-back that Alexandar Georgiev begins on Thursday night at the Blue Jackets. That will be just Georgiev’s f ifth start since Nov. 4.

“It was a three-game decision,” Quinn said. “We’re going backto-back, so it was just which game we wanted Georgie to play.”