Blue Line Station
Fansided

Rangers looking to get back in the win column against San Jose

By Anthony Tornatore Jr

LOS ANGELES, CA - DECEMBER 10: Artemi Panarin #10 of the New York Rangers celebrates his goal with teammates during the third period against the Los Angeles Kings at STAPLES Center on December 10, 2019 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Juan Ocampo/NHLI via Getty Images)
LOS ANGELES, CA - DECEMBER 10: Artemi Panarin #10 of the New York Rangers celebrates his goal with teammates during the third period against the Los Angeles Kings at STAPLES Center on December 10, 2019 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Juan Ocampo/NHLI via Getty Images) /
facebooktwitterreddit
Prev
1 of 4
Next
The New York Rangers celebrate after defeating the Vegas Golden Knights
The New York Rangers celebrate after defeating the Vegas Golden Knights /

The New York Rangers will be looking to get back in the win column as they take on the San Jose Sharks in a Thursday night match-up from the SAP Center.

On Tuesday, the New York Rangers lost a heartbreaker against the Los Angeles Kings 3-1 and will try to guarantee a split of their west coast road trip as they take on the San Jose Sharks in an inter-Conference match-up.  This could be a tough test for the Blueshirts as they face the Sharks after they fired their coach yesterday.

The New York Rangers haven’t been playing consistently since the end of November. They haven’t won more then two games in a row since they were on a three game winning streaking starting on November 23rd and ending on the 29th. On the bright side, in the month of December, Alexandar Georgiev has been superb in his three games in the net, posting a 2-1 record and only four goals on 118 shots, which is good for a .966 save percentage. Georgiev is truly pleading his case on why he deserves to be the Blueshirts full time goalie. His counterpart, Henrik Lundqvist, hasn’t been as good as head coach David Quinn would’ve like as he is coming into this match-up allowing six goals in two games in the month of December.

Overall, the Rangers are 15-12-3 with 33 points and occupy the sixth spot in the Metropolitan Division. The Sharks, on the other hand, sit at 15-16-2 with 32 points and are in the sixth spot in the Pacific Division. With a win, the Rangers can finally start gaining some ground as they are only six points away from third place in the Metro.

Offensively, Artemi Panarin has been playing very well offensively and has been one of the Rangers bright notes so far this season. He’s scored three goals in his last four games and has four points in those contests. Panarin is also tied for sixth place in the NHL in games with a goal (14), games with a point (23) and in multi-point games (13) this season. He’s also been on the ice for 50 of the Blueshirts 94 goals so far this season. When Panarin is on the ice, the opposing team always needs to keep him in check which then opens it up for another player to take advantage of that and possibly score.

The last time that these two teams met last season, the Rangers defeated the Sharks in an overtime shootout 4-3. Mats Zuccarello (1) and Chris Kreider (2) both came away with goals that game for the Blueshirts. Brent Burns, Timo Meier and Tomas Hertl put in the three goals for the Sharks that night.

Home/Analysis