New York Rangers: Why tonight’s game versus Ottawa is a must win
The New York Rangers take on the Ottawa Senators tonight in their second to last home game. All indications are that Henrik Lundqvist will get the start and that’s why this is a game the Blueshirts must win.
Henrik Lundqvist needs one more win to reach the 450 mark. The New York Rangers future Hall of Famer is sixth on the all-time list with 449 and has failed in his last five attempts to reach the milestone. You can see that it is eating at him in his post-game comments and this may be his last, best chance this season to get the win.
After tonight’s game, the Rangers play Columbus at Madison Square Garden on Friday and travel to Pittsburgh on Saturday for their season finale. Both the Blue Jackets and Penguins are in a desperate fight for playoff seeding so those games should have playoff intensity. Ottawa has the worst record in the league and is going nowhere. Tonight’s the night.
The entire team owes Lundqvist their best effort tonight and they should play this game as if it is game seven of the Stanley Cup Finals. Ranger veterans like Chris Kreider and Mika Zibanejad need to set the example for their younger teammates. The effort we see tonight will tell us a lot about the character of this Ranger team.
You have to know that David Quinn is well aware of the significance. That’s one reason he held Pavel Buchnevich, one of the team’s hottest scorers, out of Monday’s match with the Devils. After Monday’s game, Quinn said he will likely give Lundqvist two more starts in an effort to get to the 20-win mark. Lundqvist is already the only goaltender in NHL history to reach 20 wins in his first 13 years in the league. Two more wins will make it 14 years.
2019 has been cruel to the King. He has started 22 games with a record of 6-13-3. Before the New Year, he had lost only seven games in regulation in 26 starts and singlehandedly had kept the team in a number of games.
If anything, Quinn could be accused of overworking Lundqvist as he started 30 of the team’s first 39 games. There’s no doubt that Lundqvist wanted the workload and he acknowledged that the lack of starts recently has been hard on him.
The New York Rangers have been blessed to have Henrik Lundqvist in net for 14 years. His competitiveness and drive to win are legendary throughout the NHL. This is the toughest stretch of his professional career and one wonders if his pledge to stick it out is still valid. This was what he said in training camp:
“People talk about rebuild and nobody knows how long of a project that is. There’s no other place I want to be. I feel great, excited to be back here and just see how far we can take this forward this year.” – Henrik Lundqvist, September 2018
Compare that optimism to the Lundqvist we saw after the dispiriting loss to the Devils:
“It was great to see both teams play hard. Both teams want to win. You want to make the most of it coming down the stretch, here.” — Henrik pic.twitter.com/4OYbEM0Ggw
— New York Rangers (@NYRangers) April 2, 2019
So, tonight’s the night for the Rangers to play their hearts out to show respect for one of the greatest players to ever don the Rangers’ jersey. Tonight, the lottery standings don’t matter, the team just needs to win. .
Stuff you need to know about the game
- About the Rangers
- Pavel Buchnevich is expected to play tonight after sitting out one game as a precaution after a collision Sunday.
- The Rangers will finish the season above .500 against teams in the Atlantic Division. They are below that mark against the other three divisions.
- The Rangers were awful on faceoffs Monday and have dropped to the second worst winning percentage in the NHL (47.3%).
- Brendan Lemieux has played only 16 games as a Ranger, but is already seventh on the team in penalty minutes. In an earlier game while with Winnipeg he fought Ottawa defenseman Ben Harpur.
- The Rangers will announce the winner of the Steven McDonald Extra Effort Award before the game.
- New York prospect and free agent signee Jake Elmer’s Lethbridge Hurricanes were eliminated from the WHL playoffs last night. Don’t be surprised if he signs an Amateur Tryout with the Wolf Pack who have six more games left.
- Prospect Patrick Newell is on an ATO in Hartford and should make his debut tonight.
- Forward Riley Hughes and the Victoria Grizzlies were eliminated from the BCHL playoffs last night. He will next be seen at Northeastern University. .
- About the Senators
- Since firing head coach Guy Boucher on March 1, the Senators have gone 6-8-1 under interim coach Marc Crawford. They fired Boucher four days after the trade deadline when they dealt Mark Stone, Matt Duchene and Ryan Dzingel.
- Under Boucher, the Senators were 22-37-5.
- To describe the Senators as offensively challenged would be an understatement. Brady Tkachuk is the only player with over 20 goals and leads all forwards with 43 points. In Thomas Chabot, Ottawa has a budding star on defense. He has 13 goals and 53 points.
- Anthony Duclair has found a home in Ottawa. He has 18 goals this season, 11 with Columbus and is headed for his best season in four years.
- Oscar Lindberg is the other ex-Ranger on the Senators. He came over from Vegas in the trade for Mark Stone. .
- The Senators have allowed 289 goals, the most in the league, allowing 3.69 goals per game. They allow an average of almost 36 shots per game, most in the NHL.
- Ottawa has the worst road record in the league at 10-27-2.
- The Senators signed goalie Joey Daccord out of Arizona State University. He’s a finalist for the Mike Richter Award for the best college goalie. He will report to the Senators and stay with the team for their last three games.
- Head to head
- The teams have split the first two games of the season series. They played a back-to-back series in November with the Rangers winning 4-2 at MSG and the Senators shutting out the Blueshirts 3-0 three nights later.
- Henrik Lundqvist started both games in the series.
- The Rangers haven’t won a season series against Ottawa since 2015-16.
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- Game Info
- The game is starting at 7:30pm, a half our later than normal. The game will be televised on MSG Plus. Radio will be WNYM 970 AM.
- The next game for the Rangers is Friday night against Columbus.