Looking for the sweep against the Devils

When the New York Rangers schedule came out, everyone looked at this four game series with the Devils as a curiosity of a COVID driven season.  No one anticipated that this series would have such a huge impact on the playoff hopes of the Blueshirts.  So far, the Rangers have followed the script, but they have been keeping pace with the Bruins, not catching up to them.  That could change on Sunday with the Bruins hosting the division leading Capitals.  A Bruins loss and a Rangers win and the gap will be narrowed to only two points.

All of this good will and positivity will go south if the Rangers lose this game.  As with all of the 12  remaining games for the Rangers, this is a must win.

The Devils have had more shot attempts than the Rangers in all three games with Saturday the most lopsided of the three.  At even strength, the Devils had 60 shot attempts to the Rangers’ 38.   The Rangers need to stop the Devils’ transition game and in center ice, it was much to easy for New Jersey to gain entry to the Rangers’ zone.  While you can argue that the Blueshirts cannot be blamed to easing up when they had the early lead, but Saturday it almost cost them.

About the Rangers

The key question is whether there will be any lineup changes, especially considering that this is the second of back-to-back games.  The one change that could easily be made would be for Alexandar Georgiev to get the start in goal, even though Igor Shesterkin has been playing lights out.

Adam Fox was scoreless and dropped to third place in the scoring race behind John Carlson and Victor Hedman.  Carlson jumped ahead with seven points in his last three games and Hedman had two assists in Tampa’s loss to Florida.  Dominic Moore tweeted out his support for Fox for the Norris Trophy.

It’s Mika Zibanejad’s birthday today. Any chance he could become the second New York Ranger with a hat trick on his birthday?

Pavel Buchnevich’s newfound defensive prowess has helped his scoring statistics.  Quinn uses him extensively in tight games and that has resulted in four empty net goals for him this season, the most of any Ranger.  Add in his two shorthanded goals and Buchnevich can point to almost a third of his team leading 19 goals due to his work as a defensive player.

With the win yesterday, the Rangers have taken 19 of a possible 26 points from Buffalo and New Jersey. They are dead even when it comes to playing the teams in the playoff fight with 31 of 62 points.  They are below .500 versus the teams above them in the standings with 24 of 50 possible points.

Projected lineup

20 Kreider– 93 Zibanejad – 89 Buchnevich
10 Panarin – 16 Strome – 43 Blackwell
13 Lafrenière – 72 Chytil- 24 Kakko
21 Howden – 17 Rooney  – 72 Kravtsov

55 Lindgren – 23 Fox
79 Miller – 8 Trouba
25 Hajek – 42 Smith

31 Shesterkin
40 Georgiev

About the Devils

The Devils should be going with much the same lineup especially considering how well they played on Saturday. They will likely go back to Mackenzie Blackwood in goal.

The team recalled left winger Nolan Foote from Binghamton and he could make his NHL debut today. He is the son of Adam Foote and was a Tampa first round pick traded to the Devils in 2020 for Blake Coleman.

Foote is a candidate to replace Miles Wood who was ailing yesterday  or Andreas Johnsson who has only three goals and eight points in 43 games playing top six minutes.

Projected lineup

59 Janne Kuokkanen – 86 Jack Hughes – 38 Yegor Sharangovich
11 Andreas Johnsson-  13 Nico Hischier -39 Nick Merkley
23 Mikhail Maltsev – 90 Jesper Boqvist -67 Marian Studenic
44 Miles Wood  -20 Michael McLeod – 14 Nathan Bastian

24 Ty Smith – 76 P.K. Subban
22 Ryan Murray – 28 Damon Severson
71 Jonas Siegenthaler – 7 Matt Tennyson

29 MacKenzie Blackwood
4 Scott Wedgewood