Rangers vs Blackhawks, the sequel & live conversation

The New York Rangers have two streaks on the line as they take on the Chicago Blackhawks in the second of a back-to-back series.   They will be trying to extend their winning streak to seven and they will looking for their third straight road win.

It will be Alexandar Georgiev in goal for the Blueshirts and he will be looking to build on his excellent start on Saturday against the Blackhawks.  He stopped 25 of 27 shots and the two goals could easily have been disallowed, one for a high stick and the other for a late whistle.

For the Blueshirts, they will be going with the same lineup they have been fielding for several games.

The Rangers had two days off in between games and return to the Garden to play Colorado on Wednesday. The Blackhawks played on Long Island Sunday night, allowing a last minute tying goal to the Islanders, but going on to win in a shootout.

The big storyline is Marc-Andre Fleury who will be going for his 500th win in his 900th NHL game. He is third on the all time list, behind Martin Brodeur (691) and Patrick Roy (551).   Fleury has gotten 33 of those wins against the Rangers, the most wins for Fleury against any team in the NHL.  His lifetime record against New York is 33-18-9 with a lifetime Save Percentage of .909 and a Goals Against Average of 2.72.  His lifetime playoff record against the Rangers isn’t as good as he is 8-9 lifetime, all with the Penguins.

Projected lineups

If Chris Kreider doesn’t score tonight it will a three game goal-less streak, his longest of the season.  He has not gone more than two straight games without a goal since mid-October when he didn’t score against Toronto and Nashville.

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

40 Georgiev
32 Huska

CHICAGO BLACKHAWKS

38 Brandon Hagel – 19 Jonathan Toews – 88 Patrick Kane
12 Alex DeBrincat – 77 Kirby Dach – 17 Dylan Strome
8 Dominik Kubalik – 13 Henrik Borgstrom – 152 Reese Johnson
22 Ryan Carpenter – 36 Josiah Slavin – 16 Jujhar Khaira

44 Calvin DeHaan – 4  Seth Jones
6 Jake McCabe – 51 Ian Mitchell
61 Riley Stillman- 56 Erik Gustafsson

29 Marc-Andre Fleury
32 Kevin Lankinen

The lineup has some changes from the group that played against the Rangers Saturday, most notably on defense.   Jujhar Khaira should be in for Mike Hardman up front with blueliners Caleb Jones and Wyatt Kalynuk out, replaced by Jake McCabe and Riley Stillman.

Postponed game rescheduled

The game against the Islanders that was postponed last week has been rescheduled for St. Patrick’s Day, March 17.

It means the Rangers will have 14 games in the month of March. Due to the Olympics, the Rangers have 14 games in December, January, March and April, a very heavy schedule.  The make up date for the postponed game in Ottawa has not been announced.

How to watch and the live thread

It’s a late 830pm start due to a change in time zones.  The telecast will be on the MSG2 Network locally and ESPN+ nationally. The radio call will be on WEPN 1050AM.

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.

Join your fellow Rangers fans as we root Alexandar Georgiev to a second straight win!