New York Rangers: A game with the playoffs in the balance

It may be hyperbole, but the New York Rangers are playing a game tonight that could determine their playoff future.

Tonight’s contest with the Carolina Hurricanes could determine how New York Rangers General Manager Jeff Gorton charts the course for the team’s future.  It’s much more than a matter of where the team will be in the standings after the game is over.  It’s how they respond to the challenge of playing a road game against a key playoff rival.

The Hurricanes need to win this game as much as the Rangers.  They are in the final wild card spot, but it is a precarious hold on that position.  They have the same number of points as the New York Islanders, but own the regulation wins tie breaker.

They have also played the same number of games as the Blueshirts and are only six points ahead.  Believe it or not, a Ranger win tonight combined with a loss by the Islanders would leave the upstart Rangers only four points out of the postseason.

Could those four points pursuade Jeff Gorton to hold on keep the current team intact or is he still going to go for a cornucopia of assets at the trade deadline?  Smart money is on Gorton still trading Chris Kreider and another other trade-able assets so long as the return is rich enough.

That thought process makes sense for one simple reason.  As well as the Rangers have been playing, the schedule of the rest of the season is very challenging.  They play Philadelphia and Pittsburgh three times, Washington twice, and have single games left with Tampa, Colorado, St. Louis, Dallas and Arizona.

Of the 23 games the Rangers have left, 13 are on the road and 14 are against the ten best teams in the league.  That’s challenging.

A pessimist (realist?) would point to their record against those ten teams so far this season. They have gone 8-9-1 against those teams and playing .500 hockey just won’t cut it.

An optimist would point to the team’s 11-5 record against Metropolitan Division rivals.   An optimist would argue that those loses came pre-Shesterkin and before Kreider’s revival.

Here are some sobering numbers. In the recent 8-3 spurt by the Rangers, their eight wins came against teams with a combined won-lost record of 185-203-50 while their three losses came against teams with a combined record of 100-55-26.

Shesterkin may be a miracle worker, but even he will have a tough time beating those odds.

About the Hurricanes

The Hurricanes have been playing above .500 hockey since the All-Star break, going 5-3-1 in that time.  They are coming off a big 4-1 road win over the Predators, but they have settled into a win one, lose one rhythm.

It looks like Petr Mrazek will be in goal for the Hurricanes.   He is the number one starter for Carolina with a 20-15-2 record and a 2.67 goals against average and .905 save percentage.

The rest of the Hurricanes lineup will be the same that played on Tuesday in Nashville.   Sebastian Aho is the team’s leading scorer with 34 goals and 57 points.  Andrei Svechnikov is the only other Hurricane with over 20 goals.

The team’s leading defenseman, Dougie Hamilton, was lost for the season with a broken leg last month and his loss has hurt.   Jacob Slavin is the top blueliner offensively in the lineup with five goals and 30 points.

The Hurricanes should be sending the Montreal Canadiens fruit baskets for signing Aho to an offer sheet over the summer.   The Canes matched and now have their star center locked in for five years at the bargain rate of $8.5 million per year.   The 22-year old Finn is making his mark as one of the best young players in the NHL.   He has been on fire lately.  In his last 12 games he has 11 goals and seven assists and has been unstoppable.   He is on a ten game point scoring streak.

This will be the Rangers first look at Justin Williams who signed with the Hurricanes in January. In ten games, the 38-year old has two goals and one assist playing on the second line with Jordan Staal.

Carolina comes into the game with the tenth best offense in the league, averaging 3.19 goals per game.   They have the ninth best defense, allowing an average of 2.79 goals per game. Their power play ranks 19th in the NHL, but they have a solid penalty kill, the seventh best in the league with an 82.8% success rate.

About the Rangers

It will be Igor Shesterkin in net and the same lineup as Wednesday in tonights match with the Hurricanes.

With the lineup intact, it means that Julien Gauthier will get a chance to show up the team that traded him to the Rangers on Tuesday.  Joey Keane was assigned to the Charlotte Checkers of the AHL so this will not be a head to head match up.

This will be the last time the two teams meet this season.  The Rangers have taken all three games from Carolina, winning 3-2 and 5-3 at Madison Square Garden and 4-2 in Raleigh behind Henrik Lundqvist’s best game of the season, a 45 save effort.   In fact, Lundqvist has started all three games against Carolina and they have had over 40 shots in each of the games. That’s a troublesome statistic.

Those numbers raise the question of whether Coach David Quinn even considered giving Henrik Lundqvist the start tonight.   The King has won 33 of 46 games in his career against the Hurricanes, allowing an average of only two goals per game. It’s his second best goals against average against any teams and that is his best winning percentage.

Of course, Lundqvist has not had a start since February 3 and this may not have been  the time to test his battle readiness.  Quinn will ride Shesterkin until the Rangers are not a playoff contender.  That said, Shesterkin has not had back-to-back starts in the NHL and usually split them with Adam Huska while he was in Hartford.  Shesterkin did start two games in two nights during the NHL All-Star break and won both games, allowing only three goals.

Artemi Panarin will be looking for career point number 400.  It’s a number achieved by only 24 Russian players before him.

This is a game of streaks for the Rangers. They have gone seven games without allowing a power play goal, going 16 for 16 in the process.   They have also won six games in a row on the road, the second longest road winning streak in team history.  A victory tonight will tie the Ranger record of seven, set in 1934-35 and tied in 1978-79.

Although the Ranger defense has improved, they have continue to allow a lot of shots. They have allowed the opposition over ten shots in every period in five  of the last 10 games.