NEW YORK, NY - OCTOBER 16: Patrik Nemeth #12 of the Colorado Avalanche skates with the puck against Filip Chytil #72 of the New York Rangers at Madison Square Garden on October 16, 2018 in New York City. The New York Rangers won 3-2 in a shootout. (Photo by Jared Silber/NHLI via Getty Images) /
NEW YORK, NY – OCTOBER 16: Mats Zuccarello #36 of the New York Rangers skates against Semyon Varlamov #1 of the Colorado Avalanche at Madison Square Garden on October 16, 2018 in New York City. The New York Rangers won 3-2 in a shootout. (Photo by Jared Silber/NHLI via Getty Images) /
Three things the Rangers need to do to win
Shut down the MacKinnon line – As the MacKinnon line goes, so go the Avalanche. MacKinnon is 5th in the league in scoring, 5th in goals and 8th in assists. Rantanen is second in points and assists. Landeskog is 5th in goals. Colorado has some decent secondary scoring with Tyson Barrie, Carl Soderberg and Alex Kerfoot, but they rely on the MacKinnon line.
Support Georgiev and make no dumb mistakes – Elite goal scorers are opportunistic. We saw it in the Penguins game. The Rangers need to play smart and keep the game simple in their own zone.
Stay out of the penalty box, draw penalties – The Avalanche have the 6th best power play in the league at 26.5% efficiency, but they’ve been slumping. Since scoring three power play goals on December 15th, Colorado has scored only five PP goals in their last eight games, a success rate of 15%. Still, the Avs can be lethal on the power play and if it gets hot, look out. As for their penalty kill, the Avalanche have killed only 70% of their penalties at home, the worst in the league.
