Rangers vs Sharks preview and live conversation
By Steve Paulus
After one day off, the New York Rangers are back in action against the San Jose Sharks, hoping to stretch their Madison Square Garden winning streak to seven games. They are taking on a Sharks team that has exceeded expectations this season, in fourth place in the Pacific Division with a record of 13-9-1. This is the fourth game of a five game road trip and they have won the first three games of the trip. They’ve won five of six and will be a challenge for the Blueshirts.
One thing in the Rangers’ favor is the Sharks played Thursday on Long Island, needing overtime to beat the Islanders, 2-1. This will be only the second time the Sharks have played back-to-back games. In October, they beat Toronto on the road after winning in Ottawa.
The Rangers host Chicago tomorrow and that means that, according to Coach Gallant, they will split the goaltending between Igor Shesterkin and Alexandar Georgiev with Shesterkin the starter tonight.
The last time the Rangers played the Sharks was February 22, 2020, a 3-2 overtime win at home. Only seven San Jose players are still with the team who played in that game and five of them are defenseman. Barclay Goodrow played for the Sharks against the Rangers in that game as well. 11 Rangers are still with the Rangers’ lineup for that game. That win was the only time Igor Shesterkin has played against San Jose.
Since 2014-15, the Rangers have a 9-2-1 record against the Sharks. While the Rangers have run roughshod against the Metropolitan, Atlantic and Central Divisions, getting 27 of a possible 32 points, they have won once in five games against Pacific Division teams.
From 2014 through 2018, the Rangers had a 42-11-5 record against the Pacific, but the last two years they are only 10-15-2.
Projected lineups
The Rangers called up Morgan Barron from Hartford so they have a spare forward with Greg McKegg out on COVID protocol. The Wolf Pack team is in the same, but only 10 players have tested positive and obviously, Barron was not one of them. The way the Rangers are going, it’s not likely that we will see Barron in any games soon. There was a question of Barclay Goodrow being able to play after taking a puck in the face on Wednesday, but he is in the lineup.
NEW YORK RANGERS
20 Kreider – 93 Zibanejad – 24 Kakko
10 Panarin – 16 Strome – 29 Hunt
13 Lafrenière– 72 Chytil– 15 Gauthier
17 Rooney – 21 Goodrow– 75 Reaves
55 Lindgren – 23 Fox
79 Miller – 8 Trouba
12 Nemeth – 27 Lundkvist
31 Shesterkin
40 Georgiev
SAN JOSE SHARKS
28 Timo Meier – 39 Logan Couture – 76 Jonathan Dahlen
94 Alexander Barabanov – 48 Tomas Hertl – 92Rudolfs Balcers
83 Matt Nieto – 13 Nick Bonino – 73 Noah Gregor
18 Lane Pederson – 26 Jasper Weatherby – 62 Kevin Labanc
38 Mario Ferraro – 88 Brent Burns
21 Jacob Middleton – 65 Erik Karlsson
44 Marc-Edouard Vlasic – 51 Radim Simek
47 James Reimer
33 Adin Hill
The Sharks have allowed only three goals on this road trip so far so they are playing a shutdown defense. They have improved to sixth overall in the NHL, allowing only 2.61 goals per game. They are scoring at a 2.70 goals per game rate while the Rangers have increased their number to an even three goals per game.
The San Jose power play is in the bottom third of the league at 17.5% but their penalty kill is second best in the NHL at 88.1%. They are also very good on faceoffs, eighth best in the league with a 52.3% success rate. The Rangers are at the bottom of the standings at 45.5%.
Goalie James Reimer will get the start and he has been splitting the netminding with Aden Hill who play against the Islanders. Reimer has been very good this season with number very similar to Igor Shesterkin. Shesterkin has a better save percentage, .935 to.934. Reimer’s goals against average of 2.11 is slightly better than Shesterkin’s 2.15.
Offensively, their leader is Timo Meier who leads the team with 11 goals and 24 points in 18 games. He has five game winning goals, second to Edmonton’s Leon Draisaitl who has six.
Rookie Jonathan Dahlen is the son of former Rangers first round pick, Ulf Dahlen.
How to watch and the live conversation
Game time is 7pm and the telecast will be on the MSG Network locally and ESPN+ nationally. The radio call will be on ESPN 98.7 FM.
As usual Blue Line Station will be hosting its live in-game conversation using the comments feature below. 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.