It’s game two of the exhibition season for the New York Rangers and it’s almost a completely new lineup for the Blueshirts. We’ll see how this version of the team plays after a disheartening loss on Sunday night to the Islanders.
While the lineup feature a number of prospects and minor leaguers, there are 13 players in the lineup with NHL experience including their best player in Artemi Panarin and their number one goalie, Igor Shesterkin.
Tonight's game group is in. pic.twitter.com/zOEkzOUija
— New York Rangers (@NYRangers) September 28, 2021
Ranger fans will get to see Ryan Reaves on the Madison Square Garden ice for the first time in Blueshirt jersey and Sammy Blais will also be making his first start.
Tony Bitetto is the only player who played on Sunday night who will be in the lineup for tonight’s game. He had a tough game paired with Jared Tinordi and Gallant may want to see how he fares with a different defense partner.
Rangers projected starting lineup
Here’s how the lines look for tonight’s game.
10 Artemi Panarin – 16 Ryan Strome – 24 Kaapo Kakko
91 Sammy Blais – 17 Kevin Rooney – 75 Ryan Reaves
78 Brennan Othmann – 14 Greg McKegg – 76 Jonny Brodzinski
26 Tim Gettinger – 90 Justin Richards – 49 Lauri Pajuniemi
79 K’Andre Miller – 8 Jacob Trouba
6 Zac Jones – 45 Braden Schneider
25 Libor Hajek – 22 Tony Bitetto
31 Igor Shesterkin
80 Tyler Wall
This will be the beginning of the “Can Kaapo Kakko play right wing with Panarin and Strome” experiment. The Kevin Rooney line could very well remain intact as the fourth line on opening night.
2021 first round pick Brennan Othmann is getting his crack at playing at the Garden before he returns to junior hockey. Greg McKegg, Jonny Brodzinski, Tim Gettinger and Justin Richards are all ticketed for Hartford, but will want to leave an impression. This will be Finnish forward Lauri Pajuniemi’s debut in a Ranger uniform. He was a big scorer in the Finnish Liiga the last two seasons and it will be interesting to see if that translates to North America.
On defense, the bottom four all have a shot at sticking with the big club and this is a big game for each of them. Zac Jones, Libor Hajek and Tony Bitetto all have a legitimate shot at staying as the seventh defenseman while Braden Schneider is waivers exempt and should get playing time in Hartford.
In net, we should see Igor Shesterkin for half the game while Tyler Wall will get a look see before he goes down to Hartford.
The Bruins lineup
The Bruins announced their travelling lineup for road games this week in New York and Washington and there are not a lot of familiar names in the group. In fact, there are only five players with a decent amount of NHL experience in the group.
12 of these 13 forwards will suit up for the game tonight.
Forwards: 61 Samuel Asselin, 81 Anton Blidh, 47 Matt Filipe, 11 Trent Frederic, 38 Jesper Froden, 53 Cam Hughes, 45 Joona Koppanen, 20 Curtis Lazar, 68 Fabian Lysell, 92 Tomas Nosek, 19 Zach Senyshyn, 62 Oskar Steen and 23 Jack Studnicka
One of these blueliners wil not play.
Defenseman: 54 Jack Ahcan, 55 Tyler Lewington, 79 Brady Lyle, 27 John Moore, 6 Mike Reilly, 58 Urho Vaakanainen and 765 Nick Wolff
Two of these three goalies will split the game.
Goaltenders: Jeremy Brodeur, 85 Kyle Keyser and 35 Linus Ullmark
The NHL veterans who could be in the lineup are forwards Nosek and Lazar, defensemen Reilly and former Ranger John Moore. Linus Ullmark was signed to replace Tuuka Rask from the Buffalo Sabres.
Many of the Bruins players have seen minimal NHL experience including Bligh, Frederic, Hughes, Senyshyn, Steen, Studnicka among the forwards and Ahcan, Lewington and Vaakanainen on defense. And yes, Jeremy Brodeur is Marty’s son.
So, not Bergeron, Marchand, Pastrnak, Hall, Coyle, McAvoy et al. Save that for the regular season. Considering the wide disparity in experience between the two lineups, the Rangers should win this game handily. We shall see.
Roster moves
The Rangers reduced their training camp roster to 42 by sending Tanner Fritz, Austin Rueschhoff and Tarmo Reunanen to Hartford.
OFFICIAL: #NYR have assigned Tanner Fritz, Austin Rueschhoff and Tarmo Reunanen to @WolfPackAHL.
— New York Rangers (@NYRangers) September 28, 2021
The Rangers have 42 players remaining in Training Camp.
Fritz was signed by Hartford and was always going to play there. Rueschhoff has been hampered by injuries since the prospects camp. While Tarmo Reunanen was always going to play in Hartford, his not getting a chance to play in a preseason game is a bit of surprise. He was one of the leading scorers last season among defensemen in the AHL last season and played well in five games with the Rangers last season. Reuanen is probably the prospect most affected by the depth of the Rangers blueline corps. He’s been surpassed by Nils Lundkvist and Zac Jones on the depth chart.
About the game
The game is set to begin at 7pm on the MSG Network. National television is going to be on the NHL Network. From what we can tell, it will not be on ESPN+. As with Sunday, there will be no pregame coverage on MSG, coverage starts at 7pm.
Join the live conversation
As always during games, Blue Line Station will be hosting a live in-game conversation using the comments feature below. Feel free to watch the game and talk about it with your fellow Ranger fans. We’ve had some issues with the comments refreshing and are working on that, so please bear with us.
Bugs aside, it’s always fun to interact with other Rangers fans during the games and when the Rangers play the Bruins it is always interesting.
The live thread is open now!