New York Rangers At Detroit Red Wings: Pregame

Time: 7 p.m.

Location: Joe Louis Arena, Detroit, Michigan

The New York Rangers (11-9-4, 26 points) head to Detroit to take on the Red Wings (15-6-4, 35 points) and look to bounce back after a LONG break, not having played since Monday, a 6-3 loss at the hands of the Tampa Bay Lightning. The Red Wings are coming off of a 5-2 over the Dallas Stars on Thursday night. Cam Talbot gets the nod in goal tonight for the Rangers, Talbot earned his first career win last season at the Joe, so hopefully the magic is still there. Jimmy Howard starts in net tonight for the Red Wings, the American-born goaltender has a 2.22 goals against average and a .916 save percentage. These two teams met a month ago at Madison Square Garden, a game the Rangers had to play without Ryan McDonagh and Dan Boyle, but a game they won 4-3 in overtime on a goal by Derick Brassard. Anthony Duclair and John Moore are the healthy scratches for tonight’s game.

The Power Play

Since the return of Dan Boyle and Derek Stepan the Rangers power play has found new life, the power play has converted at 21.7% in the last six games and has found the back of the net in four games straight headed into tonight’s contest. This is the exact reason that the Rangers got Boyle, in fact his only two goals of the season came during consecutive games and both on the power play. The Red Wings have a top five penalty kill in the National Hockey League so if the Rangers want a true test of the power play they’ve got it tonight against Detroit.

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Defense and Goaltending

This season the Rangers have been one of the worst teams in the league by way of defense and goaltending and have yet to find a way to figure it out. This week during one of the practices it was reported that Henrik Lundqvist had a meeting the team’s defense that went on for a short bit of time; hopefully someone besides Lundqvist spoke in that group because a majority of the team’s leadership lies in that group of seven people. Players like Ryan McDonagh (the team’s captain), Dan Girardi (longest tenured skater on the team), Marc Staal (a long time Ranger) and Dan Boyle (long-time league veteran). Together they (and Talbot too) need to figure out what they’re doing because last season they were fourth overall in goals allowed and currently they sit at 20th. The Red Wings, who are fourth in the league in goals per game, will again present a good challenge for the Rangers.

Offense

One of the only positives to this season is how good the offense has been so far, the Rangers currently rank in the top 10 of the league’s offense, scoring almost three goals a game. The Rangers have three players with 20 or more points on the season, compared to the Red Wings who only have one player who’s climbed over that peak. It should be mentioned that Chris Kreider has gone through a major slump, so his offensive presence hasn’t been as noticed, or that Boyle (who’s on a two game goal scoring streak) and McDonagh (who’s on a three game point streak) have missed large swaths of the season. The point is the team’s offense hasn’t even been fully tapped into yet and they’re already a top 10 offensive team in the NHL.

Players To Watch:

For the New York Rangers I’m going to go with Dan Boyle and Derek Stepan. Stepan has tallied 13 points in his 12 games back and just seems to be on fire; Boyle has been a master on the team’s power play and you can expect him to continue such tonight.

For the Red Wings I’ll go with Jimmy Howard, who I just have a good feeling might make a few good saves tonight, and Henrik Zetterberg, who leads his team in points and is always a safe bet when thinking about who might have a good game.

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