Time: 7 p.m.
Location: Madison Square Garden
Tonight the New York Rangers take on the New York Islanders at Madison Square Garden. The two teams are currently at very different points in the season only three days in. For the Islanders, they currently sit 2-0-0 having only played the two games, both against the Carolina Hurricanes who are arguably the worst team in the National Hockey League. The Rangers are 1-2-0, who after beating the very strong St. Louis Blues on opening night, lost to the Columbus Blue Jackets and the Toronto Maple Leafs by a combined score of 11-5. The Rangers know they need to bounce back tonight and the Islanders are looking to shut that down as fast as possible.
The Rangers have already been plagued with the injury bug, losing Dan Boyle and Derek Stepan for 4-6 weeks. (Stepan is closer to returning than Boyle, but still not very close). On Sunday’s home opener against Toronto, forward Mats Zuccarello was injured and could not play in the game, but he will play in tonight’s contest. Rick Nash, who is on a three game goal scoring streak left the game early because he wife was having a baby (for those curious she delivered a healthy baby boy named McLaren Nash.) Hopefully we can sign him to play center for a while. According to Andrew Gross of the Record, these are the Rangers lines tonight. Henrik Lundqvist will start in-goal.
#NYR morning skate lines: Duclair-MSL-Nash Kreider-Brassard-Stempniak Hagelin-Hayes-Zuccarello Malone-DMoore-Glass.
— Andrew Gross (@AGrossNewsday) October 14, 2014
#NYR morning skate D-pairs: McDonagh-Girardi Staal-Kostka JMoore-Klein
— Andrew Gross (@AGrossNewsday) October 14, 2014
Rangers captain Ryan McDonagh told NHL.com what he thinks the team needs to do to get back on track. “I think we’ve been pretty undisciplined here all three of these games so far and giving teams a lot of looks on the power play … It starts with execution. We need a little bit of everything.”
Ryan Malone and Mike Kostka will make their Rangers debut tonight.
The Islanders are a team that’s massively improved over the summer, they brought in goaltenders Jaroslav Halak and Chad Johnson, and defense-men Nick Leddy and Johnny Boychuk. They’re much more balanced now than they were in seasons past. Currently, Brock Nelson leads the team with six points, but John Tavares and Boychuk are right behind him with five points each. The Islanders are playing against a much, much better hockey team than they’ve faced the last two games, so they’re going to need to adjust fast if they have a chance of winning. According to the Islanders twitter account, Halak will start in-goal tonight for the Islanders, and the line-up will remain the same as it has been the past two games.
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My player to watch for tonight for the Rangers is Rick Nash. Nash has scored four goals in three games and has been on fire since the season started. If he can keep his play up hopefully it will give the Rangers the boost they need to make it over the hump of beating a much improved Islanders squad. My player to watch for the Islanders is Johnny Boychuk, he’s been one of the team’s best players in the first two games and you can expect him to keep the play up through tonight’s game and on if the Islanders are serious about making the playoffs this season.