Rangers vs Blue Jackets preview & join the live conversation
The New York Rangers have had four days to recover from the thrashing they took at the hands of the Calgary Flames. Considering what the Flames did on their road trip, we can forgive the Blueshirts a bit for how they were beaten on Monday. The Flames swept all five games, outscored the opposition 21-7 and never trailed in any of the five games. Who knew that was coming?
It’s a different story tonight at Madison Square Garden against the Columbus Blue Jackets. Coming into the season, they were the one team in a loaded Metropolitan Division that wasn’t considered to be a playoff threat to the New York Ranger.
So far, they have exceeded expectations, winning four of their first six games including wins over the Islanders (in OT) and Dallas. They have been inconsistent, losing badly to Carolina and Detroit while scoring eight goals in beating the hapless Coyotes.
Rangers roster news
The Rangers put Ryan Reaves on Injured Reserve late Thursday after he suffered a lower body injury early on his first shift against the Flames. That means he is out at least seven days. The good news is Kaapo Kakko is ready to go, pending approval from the medical staff. He spoke to the media after practice on Thursday and said he is fully recovered from his upper body injury. He has played in only three games this season and said it will be like a fresh start to the season.
With Reaves on IR, even with Kakko returning it means that Greg Mckegg will stay with the big club. In post practice remarks Gerard Gallant indicated that he will stick with the Alexis Lafrenière-Filip Chytil-Sammy Blais combination and move Barclay Goodrow up to play with Mika Zibanejad and Chris Kreider.
As usual, we will find out about the exact lineup and who will be in goal when the team takes the ice in pre-game warmups.
About the Blue Jackets
The Columbus Blue Jackets are one of the two teams in the Metropolitan Division that did not play in the Eastern Division last season. That means the Rangers have not seen the Blue Jackets since a 3-1 win in Columbus in February 2020. It’s a very different team. Only nine players who were in that game for Columbus will be in the lineup tonight.
The Blue Jackets finished dead last in the Central Division last season, even behind the Detroit Red Wings. They had a record of 18-26-12 for 48 points, the fourth lowest total in the entire NHL. Only the Buffalo Sabres and the Anaheim Ducks had fewer wins than Columbus.
They actually got off to a decent start and were at .500 on March 25 with a 13-13-8 record. The won only five of the next 22 games and were sellers at the trade deadline and after the season.
The first thing they did was to fire coach John Tortorella after six seasons and just one year after he was a Jack Adams Award finalist. Two weeks later, the team re-hired John Davidson as President of Hockey Operations, a role he held from 2012 to 2019, when he joined the Rangers as Team President.
In June, the team announced that Assistant Coach Brad Larsen would take over as Head Coach.
Projected lineups
The late update is that Gauthier is out and McKegg is in. Kakko definitely playing . It should be Shesterkin in net.
NEW YORK RANGERS
20 Kreider – 93 Zibanejad – 21 Goodrow
10 Panarin – 16 Strome – 24 Kakko
13 Lafrenière – 72 Chytil – 91 Blais
29 Hunt – 17 Rooney – 14 McKegg
55 Lindgren – 23 Fox
79 Miller – 8 Trouba
12 Nemeth – 27 Lundkvist
31 Shesterkin
40 Georgiev
COLUMBUS BLUE JACKETS
29 Patrik Laine – 38 Boone Jenner – 93 Jakub Voracek
15 Gregory Hofmann – 96 Jack Roslovic – 28 Oliver Bjorkstrand
14 Gustav Nyquist – 34 Cole Sillinger – 16 Max Domi
50 Eric Robinson – 7 Sean Kuraly – 42 Alexandre Texier
8 Zach Werenski – 22 Jake Bean
44 Vladislav Gavrikov – 2 Andrew Peeke
53 Gabriel Carlsson – 4 Scott Harrington
90 Elvis Merzlikins
70 Joonas Korpisalo
The Blue Jackets leading scorer is Oliver Bjorkstrand with three goals and nine points. Boone Jenner has four goals, the most of any player. Patrik Laine has two goals and six points as does Zach Werenski.
About the game
Game time is 7pm and it will be televised on the MSG Network with the radio call on ESPN 98.7FM. Nationally, the game will be streamed on ESPN+.
It’s the night that the Rangers salute Essential Workers, who will be honored throughout the game.
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.
The live thread is up now!