New York Rangers vs Los Angeles Kings: Join the live conversation!
It’s going to be a late night for anyone on the east coast as the New York Rangers take on the Los Angeles Kings in the second game of a four game west coast road trip.
Despite the 1030pm EST start time for the game, we will have the Blue Line Station live conversation going during the match so feel free to weigh on how you think the New York Rangers are doing. There are a lot of storylines worth following.
One story line we have seen before pits Henrik Lundqvist against Jonathan Quick. Quick is having a bad year while Lundqvist has sat out the last three games with a minor back issue. All eyes will be on Lundqvist as he replaces a red hot Alexandar Georgiev who has allowed four goals in three games, boasting a .967 save percentage while stopping 114 of 118 shots.
Another storyline is whether the Rangers will be able to stop the barrage of shots they have been allowing in the first period of their recent games. In fact, in the last 12 games they have allowed double digit shots against in the first period 11 times. The Kings take a lot of shots so beware.
For Ranger fans there will always be a storyline when the Blueshirts face the Kings going back to the 2014 Stanley Cup Finals. Since that series, the Kings have won five of the eight games between the two teams (4-3-1). The Kings have eight players who will play tonight that were on the ice for the Cup winning game (Kopitar, Clifford, Lewis, Brown Toffoli, Carter, Doughty and Quick). The only three Rangers are left are Lundqvist, Marc Staal and Chris Kreider. The good news is Alec Martinez, who scored the winning goal in overtime, is on injured reserve.
The fact that over one third of the Kings roster is still left from that team is a sure sign that their rebuild is not fully in place, while the Rangers have turned over most of their roster.
At any rate, the Rangers would like nothing more than to send the Kings to their fifth straight loss.
Projected Lineups
New York Rangers
10 Panarin – 93 Zibanejad – 24 Kakko
20 Kreider – 72 Chytil – 16 Strome
48 Lemieux – 21 Howden – 89 Buchnevich
42 Smith – 14 McKegg – 17 Fast
76 Skjei – 8 Trouba
55 Lindgren – 23 Fox
18 Staal – 77 DeAngelo
30 Lundqvist
40 Georgiev
Los Angeles Kings
19 Alex Iafallo – 11 Anze Kopitar – 23 Dustin Brown
77 Jeff Carter – 10 Michael Amadio – 73 Tyler Toffoli
9 Adrian Kempe – 46 Blake Lizotte – 51 Austin Wagner
13 Kyle Clifford – 22 Trevor Lewis – 64 Matt Luff
6 Joakim Ryan – 8 Drew Doughty
15 Ben Hutton – 3 Matt Roy
56 Kurtis MacDermid – 26 Sean Walker
32 Jonathan Quick
36 Jack Campbell
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Join the live conversation!
It’s going to be a late night, but what else there to do? Sleep? Nah.
The live thread is open….now.
Gametime is 1030pm (730pm in Las Vegas). Coincidentally the Knicks are also on the west coast so the Rangers have been relegated to MSG2 for the telecast and ESPN radio 1050 AM.