Chytil out of the lineup and that Lemieux penalty

Forward lines shuffling

The good news is that there is some depth among the forwards.  Colin Blackwell had a solid debut in the Pittsburgh loss and is a natural center. He will probably remain in the lineup on the fourth line with Howden moving up to replace Chytil.   It would give Brendan Lemieux a chance to get back into the lineup and play with Blackwell and Kevin Rooney.

That’s if Quinn wants to leave the top two lines intact.  Ryan Strome finally got off the goal-less schneid last night and maybe it could lead to better things for that line. Pavel Buchnevich and Artemi Panarin are still playing pretty well, but the results haven’t been there.

After practice Monday, Panarin said “In the beginning of the season they (Strome and Buchnevich) didn’t feel much confidence in their finish or it has been bad luck…they’ve had many chances and to get many chances you have to be doing a lot of things right so when that luck passes they’ll be scoring five goals a game.”

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The top line is still problematic. Mika Zibanejad is off to a bad start and Chris Kreider has been very ineffective.  Alexis Lafrenière was more involved and aggressive so the hope has be that chemistry is growing.  ZIbanejad talked about the top six after the game “We know our roles and we know our responsibilities,  we just haven’t been able to get there. but you cant just lie down and feel sorry for yourself, you have to work through it. and get going.

It’s no secret that the Rangers need Panarin and Zibanejad to light up the scoreboard and though they do have three goals between them in five games, the fact is last season the fivesome of Panarin, Zibanejad, Kreider, Buchnevich and Strome scored at a 1.9 goals per game and 4.6 points per game pace and this season they are at 1.4 goals per game and 2.8 points per game.

Quinn did say that with the Chytil injury, they were open to experimenting even more with the forward lines,but didn’t say what would happen.