AV just keeps on wingin’ it

It is the black hole of the Rangers lineup, and coach Alain Vigneault is doing everything he can to keep it from sucking away any semblance of a balanced forward group.

The right wing on the second line, next to Chris Kreider and center Derek Stepan, has been a revolving door of auditions. Training camp featured a mix of J.T. Miller and Kevin Hayes, but a couple games into the regular season, Vigneault remembered his love for the bigbodied Hayes down the middle, so Jesper Fast got a shot in the top six. When more offense was needed, Miller went back.

And now that Miller has found his muchtreaded route back into Vigneault’s quasidoghouse, it was Hayes back on the wing for Monday night’s 30 win over the Predators at the Garden.

“I thought that line had some good moments,” Vigneault said after the penaltyriddled affair, when Hayes had a powerplay goal and added an assist on Stepan’s thirdperiod score that gave the Rangers a 20 lead. “When we were playing 5on5, I liked some of the looks they got.”

Vigneault said both Miller are Hayes “are young players that we have high expectations for them. We don’t think that those high expectations are over the top. We expect more from a couple of those guys and we’re trying to sort it out.” The line shuffle also put Os

car Lindberg back at his natural center position after he had been moved to wing at the start of this, his rookie season. He got an assist on Hayes’ goal on the manadvantage.

“I’ve played center pretty much all my life, so that’s what I’m more comfortable doing,” said Lindberg, who started between Miller and Fast before things got juggled midway through the second period after a spate of penalty killing. “But playing wing is fine too. Whatever the coaches say.”

Defenseman Dan Boyle, 39, stayed in the lineup for the third straight game while Dylan

McIlrath remained a healthy scratch for the 17th time in the first 21 games.