The New York Rangers can move up in the standings if they can continue their winning ways in Colorado tonight. They are the only team fighting for an Eastern Division playoff spot in action tonight.
Can the New York Rangers win again on the road, this time against the second best team in the Central Division? They’ve won ten of their last eleven on the road, so playing away from New York should not be a problem.
It is a very different Colorado team that will take the ice at the Pepsi Center tonight than the team that the Rangers beat a Madison Square Garden in January. Seven of the players who suited up for that game are out of the lineup for the Avalanche.
The injured include Nathan MacKinnon, Andre Burakovsky, Mikko Rantanen, Matt Calvert, Nazem Kadri, Nikita Zadorov and Philipp Grubauer. MacKinnon is the latest to join the Colorado injured list, out for one to two weeks with a lower body injury.
The Rangers need to take advantage of Colorado’s depleted lineup and not take the Avalanche too lightly. Despite the injuries, they still have a high powered lineup and their defense corps is one of the best in the NHL.
There were some questions about the Rangers lineup that were answered just before l game time. In a bit of a surprise, Alexandar Georgiev will be in net for the Rangers. Filip Chytil will be out after suffering a lower body injury in Dallas.
The team called up center Steven Fogarty on an emergency basis in case Chytil cannot play. Fogarty is second on the Wolf Pack in scoring with 13 goals and 37 points in 54 games. He has had two brief stints in New York this season and was scoreless in six games.
Fogarty will play right wing on the third line with Kakko shifting to the left wing and Howden at center.
Projected starting lineups
New York Rangers
10 Panarin – 16 Strome – 17 Fast
33 Di Giuseppe – 93 Zibanejad – 89 Buchnevich
24 Kakko – 21 Howden– 29 Fogarty
48 Lemieux -14 McKegg – 12 Gauthier
42 Smith – 8 Trouba
18 Staal – 77 DeAngelo
55 Lindgren – 23 Fox
40 Georgiev
30 Lundqvist
Colorado Avalanche
92 Gabriel Landeskog – 90 Vladislav Namestnikov – 13 Valeri Nichushkin
17 Tyson Jost – 37 J.T. Compher – 72 Joonas Donskoi
83 Matt Nieto – 41 Pierre-Edouard Bellemare – 61 Martin Kaut
44 Mark Barberio – 81 Vladislav Kamenev – 25 Logan O’Connor
27 Ryan Graves – 8 Cale Makar
49 Samuel Girard – 6 Erik Johnson
28 Ian Cole – 7 Kevin Connauton
39 Pavel Francouz
30 Michael Hutchinson
About the game
The start time is 10pm EST. It will be televised on MSG Plus and the radiocast will be on ESPN Radio 1050AM.
The live thread is open now.
Join in and talk about the game with your fellow Ranger fans as they try to gain some valuable ground in the playoff race.