Rangers vs. Penguins: Beware Pittsburgh after a bad loss
By Steve Paulus
About the Rangers
Quinn is definitely riding his hot goalie with Igor Shesterkin in net for the fifth straight game, the most in his short NHL career. With the team taking on the Islanders on Friday night, Quinn wouldn’t commit to changing goalies, taking a wait and see attitude. Alexandar Georgiev has a fabulous record in eight games against the Isles, 6-2 with a .941 Save Percentage and 1.80 Goals Against Average.
How important is this game? A Rangers win and they will be within nine points of the Penguins with a game in hand. A seven point gap is huge, but it may be easier to catch the Pens than to pass the Bruins when comparing schedules.
The entire Rangers team received the COVID vaccine yesterday.
With the COVID-19 vaccine now extended to anyone over 16, we’re excited that many of our players and staff opted to get vaccinated. We applaud New York’s efforts to expand eligibility and encourage our fans to get vaccinated. pic.twitter.com/4sKY4K6aVA
— New York Rangers (@NYRangers) April 7, 2021
There’ s no report of any bad reactions, but Quinn would not confirm the starting lineup. He said that he’d like to get Brett Howden back into the lineup, but he said that they hadn’t decided yet saying “there are questions in our lineup tonight.”
Projected lineup
20 Kreider– 93 Zibanejad – 89 Buchnevich
10 Panarin – 16 Strome – 43 Blackwell
13 Lafrenière – 72 Chytil- 24 Kakko
33 Di Giuseppe – 17 Rooney – 72 Kravtsov
55 Lindgren – 23 Fox
79 Miller – 8 Trouba
25 Hajek – 42 Smith31
31 Shesterkin
40 Georgiev
Wolf Pack notes
The Wolf Pack beat Bridgeport on Wednesday, 7-2, led by Tim Gettinger’s hat trick. Newly signed defense prospect Hunter Skinner picked up his first goal while Morgan Barron added an assist and Tarmo Reunanen had two apples.
Here’s a look at Hunter Skinner’s 1st goal with the @WolfPackAHL!
— Ricky Milliner (@Milliner06) April 7, 2021
Nice pressure by the group on the sequence. Hunter converts on his 2nd shot on the play.
Gettinger & Ronning are credited with the assists. #NYR #HWP pic.twitter.com/B9FRYgpzqj
Ty Ronning added two assists and he is now second on the team in scoring with six goals and 11 points. Ronning is an interesting story. The 23-year-old is in the final year of his Entry Level Contract and it looked like he would not be offered a contract after this season after splitting time between the AHL and ECHL the last two seasons.
The son of former NHL player Cliff Ronning, Ty is small at 5’9″ and 163 pounds, but had scored 61 goals in 73 games in his last season in the WHL. A seventh round draft pick in 2016, the right wing has rediscovered his scoring touch with six goals in eight games. The Rangers will have to decide if he is worth re-signing as an RFA after this season. He’s always had a great reputation as a character player, but his size has been an issue. Stay tuned.
About the Penguins
Tristan Jarry gets the start in goal for the Penguins. He was chased after one period on Tuesday night and was replaced by Casey DeSmith. Jarry had won seven of his last nine starts before that game so they are putting him right back in the saddle.
Projected lineup
59 Jake Guentzel – 87 Sidney Crosby – 17 Bryan Rust
16 Jason Zucker – 19 Jared McCann – 9 Evan Rodrigues
46 Zach Aston-Reese –11 Frederick Gaudreau – 18 Sam Lafferty
67 Radim Zohorna – 14 Mark Jankowski – 7 Colton Sceviour
8 Brian Dumoulin – 58 Kris Letang
28 Marcus Pettersson – 6 John Marino
4 Cody Ceci – 5 Michael Matheson
35 Tristan Jarry
1 Casey DeSmith