New York Rangers vs Columbus Blue Jackets: Join the live conversation
By Steve Paulus
Join the live conversation as the New York Rangers take on Metropolitan Division rival Columbus is a game that has playoff implications. It’s the kind of game the Blueshirts need to win if they expect to contend.
The New York Rangers are coming off a disappointing loss to the Vegas Golden Knights on Monday. They failed to score on six power plays and allowed two PP goals. They allowed Vegas to jump out to an early lead by taking a dumb penalty and the Golden Knights never looked back. The Rangers had a lot of opportunities, but couldn’t get back into the game. Their puck luck was non-existent and they displayed the same annoying reluctance to shoot when they had excellent opportunities.
It will be interesting to see if the Rangers take Coach David Quinn to heart and shoot more. That was the focus of their practice yesterday though Quinn wasn’t entire satisfied with the results “It’s a team wide problem. We even saw it today in practice…it’s just our mentality. One of the reasons we have one of the best shooting percentages in the NHL is because we only shoot when we think we’re gonna score…we have to keep harping on it and getting them to do it…even in the drill we did today..seven or eight times we should shoot a puck and we don’t. So, it’s something we have to keep harping on.”
The key storyline is Artemi Panarin‘s return to the city he played in for the last two years. More on that in our game preview you can read by clicking below:
Related Story. Panarin returns to Columbus. light
Although they are close to returning, it looks like Greg McKegg and Marc Staal will be out again, though David Quinn said both players are very close to returning. Boo Nieves will be in for Micheal Haley so the lineup will be almost the same as in the last few starts for the Rangers.
The Columbus Blue Jackets are a young team, almost as young as the Rangers. They have seven players in tonight’s starting lineup aged 24 or younger. The Rangers have ten. With Staal close to returning, the play of the young defense corps will determine who sits when he is healthy enough to play, and we will play.
Alexandar Georgiev will be in goal for the Rangers with Henrik LundqvistProjected lineups
New York Rangers
48 Lemieux – 93 Zibanejad – 89 Buchnevich
10 Panarin – 16 Strome – 24 Kakko
20 Kreider – 72 Chytil – 17 Fast
15 Nieves – 21 Howden – 42 Smith
76 Skjei – 8 Trouba
55 Lindgren – 23 Fox
25 Hajek – 77 DeAngelo
40 Georgiev
30 Lundqvist
Columbus Blue Jackets
14 Gustav Nyquist – 38 Boone Jenner – 28 Oliver Bjorkstrand
71 Nick Foligno – 42 Alexandre Texier – 13 Cam Atkinson
22 Sonny Milano – 18 Pierre-Luc Dubois – 52 Emil Bemstrom
20 Riley Nash – 10 Alexander Wennberg – 77 Josh Anderson
46 Dean Kukan – 3 Seth Jones
27 Ryan Murray – 58 David Savard
44 Vladislav Gavrikov – 2 Andrew Peeke
Scratches: Eric Robinson, Scott Harrington, Zach Werenski (injured)
Join the live conversation!
This will be a challenging contest for the Rangers and should provide a lot to talk about, if the Vegas game was any example.
The live thread is open….now.
The game will be televised on the MSG2 Network and the radio call is on ESPN Radio 1050AM.