That flu bug that kept Henrik Lundqvist out last night in Phoenix is no better today, and John Tortorella said all it took was a brief visit with Lundqvist this morning to know that Chad Johnson was going to take his second straight start tonight, against the Colorado Avalanche.

Lundqvist was feeling so fevered and so crummy last night that he retreated to the dressing room after the first period because of the chills he was experiencing sitting so close to the ice. In fact, Tortorella said in his pregame comments moments ago that there is no way Lundqvist will play tonight.

“Johnny’s going to go,” Tortorella said. “If it’s a struggle tonight he’s going to fight through it, because Hank doesn’t feel well at all.”

Quick note on the nets as we prepare for tonight’s Rangers-Coyotes tilt here in Phoenix - the Rangers say Henrik Lundqvist has the flu and will not start tonight. The nod instead goes to Chad Johnson for his third NHL start and fourth NHL game; he’s still looking for his first NHL victory after promising starts in Atlanta and St. Louis left him at 0-1-1. Perhaps the Rangers are just being cautious here given that they have a flight after this game and another game at altitude tomorrow night in Denver - give Lundqvist a rest (he’ll be Johnson’s backup tonight) and he could be at full strength for that one.

Among the skaters, Ales Kotalik and Donald Brashear are back to being the scratches, Kotalik for the seventh time in eight games after returning to Wednesday’s match with Carolina ostensibly to help jumpstart the power play. It did not help - nearly led to a shorthanded goal, in fact - and that power play enters tonight’s game 3-for-36 over the last 11 games with Kotalik watching again from upstairs.

We’ve written before about how John Tortorella will take every opportunity to get his team some rest in between games, particularly in the latter half of the season, and particularly amid the condensed schedule of an Olympic year. But coming out of last night’s loss to the Penguins, there was a glaring area that needed to be worked on, and so that’s what the Rangers did.

Today’s practice was devoted to the power play, with a five-man unit at each end of the rink alternating the action. And Ales Kotalik rejoined the top unit today, set to return to the lineup tomorrow night at the Garden against Carolina - in the hopes that he can help turn around a power play that is 3-for-32 over the last 10 games and had that near-six-minute stretch at the start of last night’s third period in which they failed to forge ahead in a tie game.

Same lineup goes in for the Rangers tonight here in Montreal, which means Ales Kotalik and Donald Brashear were the last off the ice at today’s fully-attended morning skate at the Bell Centre.

Brashear seemed a decent bet to get back into the lineup tonight, given the kinds of games the Rangers have played recently - Thursday’s scorcher in Philly, not to mention Sunday’s heated affair against this same Canadiens team. Brashear, though, seemed unsurprised by being out tonight, given the Canadiens’ lack of size and lack of Georges Laraque (more on that in a bit). “They don’t really have any toughness,” Brashear said of the Habs. “It’s not a real physical team, it’s mostly a fast team.”

What did surprise Brashear, though, is that he wasn’t reinserted for Thursday’s game on Broad Street, a game he had to watch from outside the glass when he thought he could have really been useful. Brashear echoed his teammates’ disdain for Daniel Carcillo taking a fight with Marian Gaborik, but said that it could have been prevented had he dressed for the game.