Artemi Panarin back for Islanders game and 5 players cut

The New York Rangers trimmed their roster by five players today and also announced that Artemi Panarin will be back in the lineup Tuesday against the New York Islanders.

Artemi Panarin is over his groin strain and will be in the starting lineup Tuesday night when the New York Rangers take on the Islanders at Madison Square Garden. Making its debut will be the new top line of Mika Zibanejad, Artemi Panarin and Pavel Buchnevich.  This will be the first time that the PZB line will be in action together.

That’s the only line that is intact from what David Quinn had penciled in as the plan for the regular season.  Brett Howden will be centering the second line with Vitali Kravtsov playing on the off wing left side and Kaapo Kakko on right wing.

Arguably, Howden has had a better training camp than Filip Chytil and may be getting consideration for centering the second line when the season starts.  After practice Coach David Quinn said that Chytil “needs to make the team.”  That was not a rousing endorsement.  He also hedged and said the he considers Chytil a top nine player as opposed to top six.

Brendan Lemieux will be making his preseason debut, but Tony DeAngelo will not see action despite practicing with the team on Monday.

On defense, the Jacob Trouba, Brady Skjei tandem will play their third game together while Adam Fox will team with Marc Staal and Joe Morrow and Brendan Smith will be the third pair.

Micheal Haley is getting his fourth straight start as the veteran on a Professional Tryout is getting a long look.

Both Henrik Lundqvist and Alexandar Georgiev will see action against the Islanders.

Five players cut

The training camp roster was reduced to 36 with the assignment of five players to the Hartford Wolf Pack training camp. Connor Brickley, Sean Day, Tim Gettinger, Nick Jones, and Dawson Leedahl.

Leedahl and Day both played last season in the AHL and saw no action in the preseason.  Leedahl is going into the last year of his entry level contract.  Sean Day was recovering from hip surgery and that set him back at training camp.

Brickley is still on a tryout and will be looking for a minor league contract.  He played in one preseason game, the last loss to the Flyers.

Gettinger also played in the Flyers game and is on his Rangers entry level contract.  Nick Jones played and scored in the Philadelphia game and is under contract to the Wolf Pack.

Of the 36 players still on the training camp roster, a number are still unlikely to stick with the team or are fighting for a job.  That includes forwards Phillip Di Giuseppe, Steven Fogarty, Micheal Haley, Vinni Lettieri, Greg McKegg, Boo Nieves and Danny O’Regan.  Haley and O’Regan are playing against the Islanders.

On defense, there a lot of questions marks.  Libor Hajek, Ryan Lindgren, Joe Morrow and Brendan Smith are all fighting to stick with the team.  Tarmo Reunanen and Matthew Robertson are not likely to stay and Yegor Rykov has yet to see any preseason action after getting injured at Traverse City, but is practicing with the team.  Morrow and Smith will be a defense pair and play against the Islanders.

Game time is 7pm Tuesday and will be televised on the MSG Network.