Rangers vs. Devils redux: Join the live conversation
By Steve Paulus
It’s the second of two straight games between the New York rangers and the New Jersey Devils. The Rangers handed the Devils their fourth straight loss and look to make it five in a matinee at the Prudential Center. The final score of 6-1 belied the final statistics. For the Rangers, the game was a possession fanatics nightmare and the Devils outchanced the Rangers by over a two to one margin.
The Rangers were the beneficiaries of some outstanding goaltending by Igor Shesterkin and some porous netminding by Mackenzie Blackwood and Aaron Dell. Blackwood is right back in net for New Jersey, but it’s a different story for the Rangers who will be starting Alexandar Georgiev.
It looks like Georgiev will be shouldering the bulk of the workload as Igor Shesterkin suffered a “mild” groin strain that will keep him out a few games. It doesn’t come at a good time as the Rangers are in one of the busiest stretches of their season. Keith Kinkaid has come off the taxi squad to serve as back up. The NHL veteran goalie has played 157 games mostly for the Devils and a handful for Montreal. He split goal duties with Cory Schneider when the Devils made the playoffs in 2017-18.
If needed, Kinkaid has seen some action with Hartford, starting two games and notching the Wolf Pack’s only two wins this season, allowing only two goals (one shutout).
Speaking of the Wolf Pack, their game today was postponed due to “roster constraints affecting the Hartford Wolf Pack.” That means that Hartford doesn’t have enough players to play and it has to be COVID related. That’s not good news.
Kaapo Kakko is back in the lineup and will be on a line with Chris Kreider and Ryan Strome. That leaves the line of Mika Zibanejad, Pavel Buchnevich and Alexis Lafrenière intact. The question of who will sit with Kakko back in the lineup is unclear.
One change for the Devils is that Michael McLeod is out of the lineup and back on the taxi squad and Nikita Gusev is back in, but the question is how Lindy Ruff will set up his lines.
This won’t be an easy game for the Rangers. The Devils elevate their play when they take on their cross-Hudson rivals and the Blueshirts need to be ready as soon as the puck is dropped.
New York Rangers
13 Lafrenière –93 Zibanejad – 89 Buchnevich
20 Kreider– 16 Strome – 24 Kakko
17 Rooney – 72 Chytil – 12 Gauthier or 43 Blackwell
48 Lemieux – 21 Howden– 33 Di Giuseppe
55 Lindgren – 23 Fox
79 Miller – 42 Smith
25 Hajek – 22 Bitetto
40 Georgiev
71 Kinkaid
New Jersey Devils
38 Yegor Sharangovich – 86 Jack Hughes -59 Janne Kuokkanen
44 Miles Wood – 37 Pavel Zacha – 21 Kyle Palmieri
11 Andreas Johnsson – 19 Travis Zajac- 63 Jesper Bratt
23 Mikhail Maltsev- – 14 Nathan Bastian
24 Ty Smith – 28 Damon Severson
70 Dmitry Kulikov- 76 P.K. Subban
8 Will Butcher – 45 Sami Vatanen
29 Mackenzie Blackwood
4 Scott Wedgewood
Join the live chat!
The game will be televised on the MSG Network with puck drop scheduled for 1pm. The radiocast will be on ESPN 998.7FM. The live thread here at Blue Line Station is active now.
We have been having some issues with the live thread auto-refreshing….here is a workaround:
If your are not seeing new posts, here’s how to see them. Hit the “Sort by” and selected Oldest. Then go back to Newest and you should see any new posts. Also there is a little bell icon on the top of this thread. If someone has replied to one of your posts, there will be a blue dot. Click on the dot and you will see the post. Then, scroll back to the top, but don’t hit escape or refresh, that will take you away from the chat.
Sorry about the confusion. We are working on it.