Rangers-Predators: Join the live conversation!
By Steve Paulus
The New York Rangers take on the Nashville Predators in the third game of a four game road trip. With two wins under their belt, the Blueshirts face the Predators who have won once in their first three games. The Predators have yet to play a road game while the Blueshirts are opening the season with five of six on the road.
It’s almost two years since the Blueshirts played in Nashville with the last visit on November 2, 2019, 2-1 win. The Rangers have split their last six games with the Predators.
The Rangers will still be without Ryan Strome (COVID-19 protocol) and Kaapo Kakko (upper body). Morgan Barron was brought up to replace Kakko and if press availability is any indication that he will play, he was provided to the media after practice so he may be in the starting lineup.
After two spectacular games followed by two days off, it’s likely that Igor Shesterkin will be in net tonight.
The Rangers need to get their offense going. They’ve scored only eight goals in four games and without the goaltending of Shesterkin, they would be in bad shape. The Predators have scored seven goals in their three games, not much better.
Projected lineups
Again, Gerard Gallant doesn’t reveal his lineup before they take the ice so this is a best guess. If Barron is in the lineup the question is who he replaced. It could be Greg McKegg, Dryden Hunt or Julien Gauthier.
It does look like it will be Mika Zibanejad and Artemi Panarin on the same line.
NEW YORK RANGERS
10 Panarin – 93 Zibanejad – 20 Kreider
13 Lafrenière– 72 Chytil – 21 Goodrow
91 Blais -17 Rooney – 12 Gauthier or 14 McKegg
29 Hunt – 47 Barron – 75 Reaves
55 Lindgren – 23 Fox
79 Miller – 8 Trouba
12 Nemeth – 27 Lundkvist
31 Shesterkin
40 Georgiev
NASHVILLE PREDATORS
9 Filip Forsberg -91 Ryan Johansen – 95 Matt Duchene
28 Eeli Tolvanen – 64 Mikael Granlund – 11 Luke Kunin
13 Yakov Trenin – 10 Colton Scissons -84 Tanner Jeannot
21 Nick Cousins – 82 Thomas Novak – 23 Rocco Grimaldi
59 Roman Josi – 57 Dante Fabbro
14 Mattias Ekholm – 45 Alexandre Carrier
5 Matt Benning – 90 Mark Boroweicki
74 Juuse Saros
39 Connor Ingram
About the game and the live conversation
The game is set to start at 8pm EST and it will be televised on the MSG Network with the radiocast on ESPN 98.7 FM. The game will be available nationally on ESPN+.
Blue Line Station will be hosting a live in-game conversation using the comments feature below. The comments have not been refreshing and one workaround is to change how the comments sort from “newest” to “oldest” and back to “newest” again. Sorry about that, we’re working on the problem.
Will tonight be the night the offense busts out? Whatever happens, it will be worth talking about.