The New York Rangers return to the friendly confines of Madison Square Garden and they should be smarting from the beatdown they took at the hands of the Washington Capitals on national television. While the “new” tougher Rangers were on display in the opener, the team needs to play smarter and their best players need to produce.
This is the season debut for the Dallas Stars as they come to the Garden to face the Rangers in the Blueshirts’ home opener. Like the Rangers, the Stars missed the playoffs last season and finished with an identical 60 points. It should be an even match.
The last time these two teams played was on March 10, 2020 in the second to last game before COVID-19 shut down the NHL. That game, played in Dallas, was a 4-2 win, the Rangers’ last victory of that season. It was the sixth loss in a row for the Stars.
Of the 19 players who suited up for the Rangers in that game, nine are no longer with the team. That team was contending for a wild card spot and on the upswing. Though we shouldn’t read too much into it, tonight will tell us something about progress.
About the Rangers
The question of the day is what lineup changes Gerard Gallant will make for this game. For one, it should be Igor Shesterkin in net. It was a mild surprise that he started Alexandar Georgiev in Washington, considering the importance of the game and both netminders’ records against the Caps. Shesterkin has had a lot of success with a 3-1 lifetime record while Georgiev is now 1-5-1. Gallant maintains that he relies on goalie coach Benoit Allaire to make those decisions. Hmm.
Other questions involve the bottom six. Ryan Reaves and Dryden Hunt played and it is possible that Reaves may get rested on the second day of back-to-back games or Hunt could sit in favor of Julien Gauthier. Reaves and Hunt don’t deserved to be “benched,” but considering the lack of offense, Gauthier may provide a spark.
It’s worth noting that the line of Filip Chytil, Barclay Goodrow and Sammy Blais was the most effective in the first half of the game when the Rangers outplayed the Capitals. The biggest problem last night was the ineffectiveness of the top two lines. Those lines are still works in progress. The Zibanejad line with Lafrenière and Kreider showed little chemistry. The Strome line with Kakko on the right side had some chances that they need to finish.
On defense, after watching Jarred Tinordi last night, fans have to hope that Nils Lundkvist will be allowed to make his debut. Tinordi had a bad game, paired with Patrik Nemeth who was the better of the duo. Where Lundkvist could help the most is on offense. The team seemed to return to it’s pass-happy habits last night and they need a point man who can get shots on net. Lundkvist can do that.
It will interesting to see what Gallant does with the lineup. He’s not the kind of coach who makes radical changes game to game and after the match last night, he maintained that he was very happy with the team’s performance for the first 33 minutes. He’s right. The Rangers allowed the Caps only six shots for the first 29 minutes of the game and the only goal was a power play score off an unlucky bounce.
It was the final 27 minutes that was a disaster as the Rangers forgot their game play, started running around and making bad plays.
As far as the Dallas Stars, the Rangers have split the season series with them three of the last four years. The last time they won the season series was 2015-16 when they won both games.
The Rangers have not had a lot of success in home openers with a 3-7-1 over the last 11 seasons. The last time they won a home opener was in 2019 when they beat the Winnipeg Jets 6-4. Last season, they were shut out by the Islanders, 4-0.