Georgiev to start, no change in COVID list & notes from practice

The New York Rangers practiced Tuesday after their overtime loss to the Flyers and there don’t appear to be any lineup changes for Wednesday night except in goal.   Coach David Quinn announced that Alexandar Georgiev will be back in net when they take on the Flyers.

When asked, Quinn said that he believed that Georgiev’s issues are mental rather than physical and he knows what he is capable of.   With Shesterkin’s return a question mark (he didn’t practice Tuesday), they really need Georgiev on the top of his game.

No COVID update

The list of unavailable players due to the NHL COVID protocol didn’t change with Pavel Buchnevich, Adam Fox and Phil Di Giuseppe all still on it.   The list is updated at 5pm every day so there is a slim chance that any of the three could find themselves available on Wednesday night.

The Rangers posted a tweet of Tony Bitetto at practice  so it appears that he is close to being ready to play again.  He has missed the last 10 games with a lower body injury.

With Bitetto available, the question is whether Quinn will go with the same lineup including rookie Tarmo Reunanen.   Options to come out for Bitetto include Reunanen, Libor Hajek and Brendan Smith, though Smith had one of his best games of the year with two massive hits on Claude Giroux and a pass to Artemi Panarin that sprung him for a two on one and a goal by Colin Blackwell.

Quinn spoke very highly of Smith after practice.”He’s a guy who brings an awful lot of energy to our lineup, he competes, he’s got a great personality, he helps the young players and he’s played well. Right now, he’s a guy we rely on…I like the direction his game’s going.”

Quinn was also very pleased with Reunanen who played just under nine minutes and assisted on Panarin’s goal.  Reunanen spoke about his crazy Monday that started with his call up to New York and how he found himself on the Garden ice.    He gave a great answer to a question about his pass to Panarin. He said “I love to shoot the puck. I had two options.  Shoot the puck or pass it and I had some time to watch who was there. I saw Panarin and I thought I had only one option, to pass and I was happy about the goal.”

Gauthier’s ups and downs

Julien Gauthier is getting his chances with two breakaways against Philadelphia.  He scored his second NHL goal on the second breakaway and is showing a willingness to crash the net and use his body.

He really negated all of his good work by taking two careless stick penalties, both which resulted in power play goals.  Both fouls were avoidable and as a result, he was stapled to the bench for the last 12  minutes of the game except for one 25 second shift.

Gauthier spoke to reporters after practice and said that he had never taken that many minutes (eight) of penalties in a game in his life.  It should be noted that Claude Giroux could have been called for embellishing the last stick foul.

Gauthier spoke about his experiences trying to work his way into the lineup. He acknowledged that he has been a goal scorer his entire life and he is now in a different role. “I’m playing more physical, being better defensively…a 200 feet game…trying to work on my overall game.”  But he also addressed his lack of scoring.  “To score goals you need puck play, you need a lot of minutes. It’s not my role right now so I’m just focusing on playing the right way. Eventually things are going to come my way…I’ve been a scorer my whole life.”

The next time you wonder what has happened to the scoring touch for Kaapo Kakko and Alexis Lafrenière, remember Gauthier’s words.  They may be getting more ice time than Gauthier, but the message that they must be getting constantly from their coaches is that the focus is on all aspects of the game, not offense.

East Division

Bad news for the Rangers as they dropped eight points behind Boston who beat the Penguins.  The Rangers-Flyers game is the only East Division game on Wednesday.

Devils 3, Sabres 2
Capitals 3, Islanders 1
Bruins 2, Penguins 1

Standings

1- Washington     29   19-6-4     42 points
2-  Islanders          30   19-7-4     42 points
3- Pittsburgh        29   18-10-1   37 points
4- Boston              27    15-8-4     34 points
5- Philadelphia     26   14-9-3     31 points
6- Rangers            27   11-12-4   26 points
7- New Jersey       26    9-13-4   22 points
8- Buffalo              28    6-18-4    16 points