How will the New York Rangers look on opening night?

The line-up, subject to change, but not really

What will the New York Rangers look like for the 2020-21 season? The final product is still in flux, but there is enough in place to make some educated guesses. It appears that the Rangers are considering shifting either Adam Fox or DeAngelo shift to the left. @vzmercogliano reports that DeAngelo would welcome the challenge and has speculated that any additional ELC call-ups are unlikely. The two main questions then, headed into next season are: Will Strome be retained? and, how will all of pieces, old and new, fit together?

Lets look at the how the line-up should shape up. Keeping the top line in tact should constitute the easiest decision of the season for Coach Quinn. The KZB line of Chris Kreider, Mika Zibanejad and Pavel Buchnevich has been a consistently productive line for the Rangers over the past two seasons. No need for fix what is not broken.

The second line will again be powered by Hart Trophy finalist Artemi Panarin on left wing. The second trio will be centered by either Strome or Filip Chytil depending on how the former’s arbitration hearing plays out. On the right side, Kaapo Kakko will move up from the third line to replace Jesper Fast, who was lost to free agency when he signed a three year deal with the Carolina Hurricanes.

If Chytil is not centering the second line, he will most certainly be centering the third line. He will have the first overall pick, Lafrenière on his left flank and most likely Brett Howden on his right, replacing the promoted Kakko. However, if Chytil takes over as Panarin’s center, expect Howden to be in the middle with Julien Gauthier at right wing.

The fourth line should see newly signed Colin Blackwell at center with his 56.1% face off winning percentage from the 2019-20 campaign. Although this percentage is based on an extremely small sample size of less than 100 total NHL face off’s, it shows better potential than any of the Rangers current centers. Blackwell will be flanked by Lemieux on the left and either Gauthier or Kevin Rooney on the right, with Philip Di Giuseppe as the 13th forward.

On defense, the switching of DeAngelo to the left to pair up with Jacob Trouba rounds out the Rangers top four.  This allows the Fox / Ryan Lindgren pairing to remain in tact. No need for new defensive coach Jacques Martin to change what has worked. The bottom pair looks to have Brendan Smith on the right and newly acquired Jack Johnson on the left with Anthony Bitetto filling in as the seventh defenseman. In goal, there is little doubt Coach Quinn will roll out a one two punch of Igor Shesterkin and Alexandar Georgiev, who just re-signed on a two year deal worth an average of $2.425 million per year.

In a snapshot, the team should look like this.

If Strome is retained:

Kreider – Zibanejad – Buchnevich                                                                                                                 Panarin – Strome – Kakko                                                                                                                          Lafrenière – Chytil – Howden                                                                                                                        Lemieux – Blackwell – Gauthier (Rooney / Di Gisueppe)

If Strome is not retained:

Kreider – Zibanejad – Buchnevich                                                                                                                  Panarin – Chytil – Kakko                                                                                                                               Lafrenière – Howden – Gauthier                                                                                                                  Lemieux – Blackwell – Rooney (Di Gisueppe)

Defense                                                                                                                                                                      DeAngelo – Trouba                                                                                                                                        Lindgren – Fox                                                                                                                                                 Johnson – Smith  (Bitetto)

Shesterkin / Georgiev

This is not quite the finished product, as the team is in its final stages of the rebuild. But it certainly will make for a fun team to watch.