Zibanejad remains out with neck injury

Mika Zibanejad will miss his second straight game Saturday afternoon in Nashville, as the Blueshirts’ center has yet to skate since absorbing a punishing blow to the upper chest from Patrice Bergeron late in the first period of last Sunday’s Garden match against the Bruins.

“It’s more of a neck, upper-body thing,” David Quinn said of the center who has previously suffered multiple concussions, including one as a Ranger two seasons ago.

Absent Zibanejad, the Blueshirts will again line up down the middle with Ryan Strome, Filip Chytil, Brett Howden and Lias Andersson.

“I prefer to have [Zibanejad], that’s for sure, and when you look at our situation from the standpoint of our youth down the middle and when you look at it you think, ‘Boy we really do miss him’, and we really do,” said the coach. “That being said, I thought that Filip Chytil had a second-line-centertype night, I thought Howden had a really good night. I thought Lias Andersson had his best night.

“Now they’ll need to follow it up.”

➤ Alex Georgiev will be in nets against the Predators, marking the first time this year that the 23-year-old has gotten consecutive starts. Georgiev is 2-2-1 with a .924 save percentage and 2.56 goals against average. He is 2-1-1/.933/ 2.26 in four starts.

➤ The Blueshirts, 4-5-1, are coming off two victories in the past three games in which respectable outings against the Sabres and Lightning were sandwiched around a debacle against the Bruins.

“We’ve done it two out of the last three games but that’s not enough,” Quinn said. “You can’t go from playing well against Buffalo and then having that colossal drop that we did against Boston, and then we have an even better performance against Tampa than we did against Buffalo.

“We’ve got to find that level where if you’re not having a great night and not feeling it, you’ve got to be able to survive.”