New York Rangers vs Islanders round 3: Join the live conversation
By Steve Paulus
It’s round three of this slugfest between two NHL heavyweights. In this corner, the upstart New York Rangers featuring a gritty team of up and coming kids and some savvy veterans. In the other corner, the New York Islanders, champions of the rope-a-dope with a counter punching style and a Yoda of a coach.
Late Breaking News!
Artemi Panarin is out with a minor upper body injury….Buchnevich taking his place on that line.It’s time to talk about the New York Rangers as they finish the first part of their season and are about to embark on a nine day layoff. They want to go out on a good note having beaten the Islanders twice in four days and look to clinch the season series. They also lost two tough matches to two excellent teams. They need this win to stay in the playoff conversation.
Alexandar Georgiev gets the nod again in net for the Blueshirts with Henrik Lundqvist backing him up. It’s worth going over Georgiev’s career numbers against the Isles. He has started four games against the Islanders and won all of them. His only loss came in relief of Lundqvist and he gave up the winning goal in a 7-5 Ranger loss. So, let’s stop talking about him losing a game to the Islanders, he really didn’t. He has stopped 128 of 134 shots for a .955 save percentage and he has a goals against average of 1.40. In the two wins, he has been off his usual standard, allowing two goals in each game. Face it, he owns the Fishsticks.
All reports are that Thomas Greiss will start for the Islanders. He’s never lost to the Rangers in regulation with a career 4-0-1 record. He is coming off a 2-1 shootout loss to the Carolina Hurricanes and came on in relief of Varlamov in the first game with the Rangers, making one save.
The Islanders have lost three in a row for the third time this season and a loss to the Rangers would give them their first four game losing streak. The Islanders have gone 5-7-3 in their last 15 games and with 61 points, are only one point ahead of Columbus and two points up on Carolina, the two wild card teams in the East.
With the loss to Columbus on Sunday, the Rangers have dropped nine points behind in the playoff race and cannot afford to play anything close to .500 hockey. That said, they have also played the fewest games of any team in the East and have a lot of games with playoff rivals left. it won’t be easy, but a win tonight will get them into the All-Star break with a good mindset.
There is one question about the lineup and that is where Pavel Buchnevich will play. On Sunday he was moved to the fourth line in a swap with Brendan Lemieux. Quinn attributed it to a lack of practice and the flu affecting Buchnevich’s game. We won’t know where the two will play until gametime and that could change during the game.
Projected Lineups
New York Rangers
10 Panarin – 16 Strome – 17 Fast
20 Kreider – 93 Zibanejad – 48 Lemieux
21 Howden – 72 Chytil – 24 Kakko
42 Smith – 14 McKegg – 89 Buchnevich
76 Skjei – 8 Trouba
18 Staal – 77 DeAngelo
55 Lindgren – 23 Fox
40 Georgiev
30 Lundqvist
New York Islanders
27 Anders Lee – 13 Mathew Barzal – 7 Jordan Eberle
18 Anthony Beauvillier – 29 Brock Nelson – 12 Josh Bailey
28 Michael Dal Colle – 10 Derick Brassard – 14 Tom Kuhnhackl
17 Matt Martin – 53 Casey Cizikas – 47 Leo Komarov
2 Nick Leddy – 6 Ryan Pulock
25 Devon Toews – 24 Scott Mayfield
8 Noah Dobson – 55 Johnny Boychuk
1 Thomas Greiss
40 Semyon Varlamov
Join the live conversation!
If this game is anything like the last two meetings between the Isles and the Rangers, there will be a lot to talk about. One thing to look forward to is the return of Brendan Lemieux who will offset some of the physicality of the Islanders. It looks like Ross Johnston won’t be in the lineup tonight, so no fisticuffs from the Islanders resident goon.
The live thread is up now!
The game will be televised on the MSG Network. The radiocast will be on ESPN 98.7 FM.
If you want to watch the Islanders version of the game, it will be on MSG+. Listening to Brendan Burke and Butch Goring insist that the Zibanejad goal didn’t cross the goal line was priceless. What’s bizarre is that they never had the camera angle that clearly showed that it had. Hmm, always thought that the production teams shared content…I guess they don’t. With no Ranger hockey for nine days, you may want to DVR the game and watch the enemy version, just for laughs.