The New York Rangers travel to Boston for their fourth preseason game and the last of the “experimental lineup” matches. After this game, the team hopes to field the lineup that will take the ice on opening night in Washington. Considering how badly the team played in New Jersey, dropping a 7-1 decision, that real lineup cannot come soon enough.
As a result, we will see another lineup of prospects and players contending for starting job. Of note is the first appearance of Matthew Robertson who has been hampered by injuries. The 2019 second round pick will end up in Hartford, but has gotten rave reviews.
Six of the forwards in this game are in a dogfight for one roster spot with the top 12 forwards already pretty much set. Will Cuylle and Lauri Pajuniemi are probably Hartford bound, but Dryden Hunt, Greg McKegg, Julien Gauthier and Morgan Barron are all playing for a job. .
On the defense, the top five are set with Gallant needing to decide whether it will be Zac Jones, Nils Lundkvist or Braden Schneider on Patrik Nemeth’s right side. The team also needs to figure out who the seventh defenseman will be.
Projected starting lineups
This is just a guess at how Gerard Gallant will set up his forward lines. The Bruins lines were released this afternoon.
New York Rangers
13 Alexis Lafrenière – 16 Ryan Strome – 24 Kaapo Kakko
91 Sammy Blais – 17 Kevin Rooney – 75 Ryan Reaves
29 Dryden Hunt – 14 Greg McKegg – 15 Julien Gauthier
50 Will Cuylle – 47 Morgan Barron – 49 Lauri Pajuniemi
55 Ryan Lindgren –44 Matthew Robertson
25 LIbor Hajek – 45 Braden Schneider
12 Patrik Nemeth – 64 Nils Lundkvist
40 Alexandar Georgiev
80 Tyler Wall
Boston Bruins
63 Brad Marchand – 37 Patrice Bergeron – 88 David Pastrnak
71 Taylor Hall – 23 Jack Studnicka -12 Craig Smith
11 Trent Frederic – 92 Tomas Nosek – 83 Karson Kuhlman
61 Samuel Asselin – 20 Curtis Lazar – 19 Zack Senyshyn
28 Derek Forbort – 73 Charlie McAvoy
6 Mike Reilly – 25 Brandon Carlo
48 Matt Grzelcyk – 79 Brady Lyle
35 Linus Ullmark
85 Kyle Keyser
Early reports had Brad Marchand not in the lineup, but now it looks like one of the best lines in hockey will be intact. The Rangers will have their hands full.
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. One workaround is to change how the comments sort from “newest” to “oldest” and back to “newest” again.
Bugs aside, it’s always fun to interact with other Rangers fans during the games and after last night’s fiasco, there should be something to talk about.
The live thread is open now!