Game number 20 as the first quarter of 2019-20 draws to a close. The New York Rangers take on the surprisingly troubling Ottawa Senators on the road. The Senators are a hot team and the Blueshirts will have to work hard to win.
Mika Zibanejad will miss his 11th straight game and Henrik Lundqvist will be in the net. Those are the headlines for the New York Rangers as they take on the Ottawa Senators for the last time this season.
The Blueshirts are coming off their best win of the season against Washington, but they have the memory of their last meeting with Ottawa. Coach David Quinn put it best just a few minutes ago. “The team we saw last time gave us a thrashing, I think we kind of jump started them on this great run they’re on. They’re playing good hockey, they’re well coached, they’re playing really hard.”
Quinn relayed the game plan and it is all about work ethic. “This is going to be a game about effort tonight, more than anything. I think the team that puts forth the best effort will have a W in the win column…so this isn’t going to be anything fancy, it’s going to be all about effort and attention to detail.”
The coach is hoping a good effort will get the team on a run. “We want to get into a rhythm of playing well, we’ve been up and down, we’ve been very inconsistent I think we’ve strung two pretty good games together…the game in Florida and the game against Washington. So, let’t get into a rhythm here…We’ve got to go on a run here where we’re playing well.”
Lundqvist will be getting his third straight start, but will definitely not be in net in Montreal. Despite his success in the last back-to-back games, Quinn is going with Georgiev. While he said that he wasn’t to get Georgiev in the lineup, Lundqvist has also not had a lot of success playing in Montreal.
Ottawa is down a few player. Cody Goloubef,and Vlad Namestnikov are missing the contest due to injuries. Defenseman Nikita Zaitsev returned to Russia for personal reasons. It’s up to the Rangers to exploit Maxime LaJoie and Christian Jaros, both called up from the AHL for this game.
Ranger killer Anders Nilsson will be in net for the Senators with a 5-1-1 career record against the Rangers.
Projected Lineups
New York Rangers
10 Panarin -16 Strome -17 Fast
20 Kreider -72 Chytil – 89 Buchnevich
48 Lemieux -21 Howden -24 Kakko
26 Gettinger -14 McKegg – 42 Smith
25 Hajek – 8 Trouba
76 Skjei – 77 DeAngelo
55 Lindgren – 23 Fox
30 Lundqvist
40 Georgiev
Ottawa Senators
13 Paul – 44 Pageau – 28 Connor Brown
7 Tkachuk – 21 Logan Brown – 10 Duclair
89 Boedker – 36 White – 63 Ennis
78 Chlapik – 71 Tierney – 14 Veronneau
72 Chabot – Jaros
74 Borowiecki – 2 DeMelo
Lajoie- 81 Hainsey
31 Nilsson
41 Anderson
Betting odds and lines
If you are a gambler, the Rangers are -110 on the Moneyline courtesy of The Action Network. Ottawa is one of the hottest teams in the NHL, with four wins in the last five and a record of 7-3 in their last ten games.
Join the live conversation
Once again, we will host a live thread of commentary as the game goes along. Feel free to join in as the game goes on. We had a very active conversation in the Washington game and this match up promises to be more of the same!