Huska in goal as Rangers take on Avalanche & live conversation

In a little but of a surprise move, goalie Adam Huska will be making his NHL debut tonight as the New York Rangers play the second of back-to-back games.

Rangers fans are a fickle lot and many think the game tonight will be tough to win.  The Rangers are taking on a powerhouse team in the Colorado Avalanche, a team that has been running roughshod over the rest of the NHL for the last month.  In that time they have gone 9-2-1 and are scoring 62 goals, an average of 5.2 goals per game.  Yikes, that’s impressive.

Let’s not forget that they have also allowed 40 goals in that time, an average of 3.33 per game.  Compare that to the 25 goals the Rangers have allowed in their last 12 games, an average of 2.08 per game.  In that time, the Blueshirts have scored 45 goals, an average of 3.75 goals per game.

Let’s not forget that they are playing at Madison Square Garden where the Rangers haven’t lost since October 25, a span of eight games.

Let’s not forget that the Rangers have a 2-1-1 record in their second games of back-to-back games and haven’t lost in regulation yet.

Let’s not forget that the Rangers are coming off a season high output of six goals while the Avalanche allowed five goals to the Flyers on Monday, six goals to the lowly Senators on Saturday and eight goals to Toronto a week ago.

So,despite any misgivings, there are an awful lot of reasons to believe that the Rangers will extend their home and overall winning streaks.

With the win in Chicago, the Rangers tied the 1931-32 team for the best start in franchise history with 37 points in 24 games.  Win against Colorado and they will have the title of best start ever with 39 points in 25 games. The 1931-32 team had 37 points in 25 games. The 1971-72 team had 38 points after 25 games.

Coach Gerard Gallant sounded like he was really looking forward to this game, saying “It’s gonna be a fast game, Colorado’s a fast team…score a lot of goals, but  that they also give up a lot of goals, so we gotta make sure we’re playing our best. ” A lot will depend on how their rookie goaltender plays.

Huska in goal

The feeling was that Gerard Gallant would go with Alexandar Georgiev in back-to-back games, but they decided to go with Huska.

Why Huska?   Gerard Gallant explained, “You look at our schedule, we’ve got 7 games in 11 days. It’s a tough battle. Everybody’s busy, but the kid’s getting his first chance. We’re looking forward to it. He’s excited, we’re excited and we think it’s the right way to go.”

He called it a “big time” test for Huska calling the Avs a “real good team that scores a lot of goals.”

The last rookie goalie to make his NHL debut in a start was Igor Shesterkin in January 2020.  He also played against the Avalanche and won 5-3.  Before that it was Alexandar Georgiev in Montreal in February 2018, a 3-1 loss. He was preceded by MacKenzie Skapski in February 2015 who won 3-1 in Buffalo.  You then have to go back to Henrik Lundqvist who lost his NHL debut in overtime to New Jersey in October 2005.

Huska was drafted in the seventh round of the 2015 NHL Entry Draft, selected 184th overall.  He is 6’3″, 200 pounds and is 24 years old.  He was born in Zvolen, Slovakia.  He came to the United States to play in the USHL at age 17 and then played three seasons at Connecticut before turning pro.  He has steadily improved in his two and a half years with Hartford and had a sparkling 2.20 Goals Against Average and  .924 Save Percentage in six starts with the Wolf Pack this season.

Huska played in two preseason games, stopping 18 of 22 shots

Projected lineups

This is the first time the Rangers are playing the Avalanche since the last game of the COVID-shortened 2019-20 season, an overtime loss after Pavel Buchnevich tied the score with the goalie pulled.   Eight Rangers are left from the team that played that night while seven Colorado Avalanche remain.

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

32 Huska
40 Georgiev

COLORADO AVALANCHE

92 Gabriel Landeskog – 29 Nathan MacKinnon – 96 Mikko Rantanen
13 Valeri Nichushkin – 91 Nazem Kadri – 95 Andre Burakovsky
16 Nicolas Aube-Kubel – Alex Newhook – 25 Logan O’Connor
26 Jacob MacDonald – 17 Tyson Jost – 43 Darren Helm

7 Devon Toews – 8 Cale Makar
49 Samuel Girard – 6 Erik Johnson
3 Jack Johnson – 56 Kurtis MacDermid

35 Darcy Kuemper
31 Jonas Johansson

Defenseman Jacob MacDonald will be playing wing on the fourth line.   Darcy Kuemper has missed his last few games with an undisclosed injury.   After playing in only 13 games last season, Jack Johnson is a regular on the blue line for the Avalanche, playing 20 games with one goal and five points.

How to watch and the live conversation

Game time is 7pm and it will be televised on the MSG2 Network (New York’s best sports team plays second fiddle to the Knicks) with the national telecast on the NHL Network.  Radio 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 Ranger fans we root Adam Huska on in his NHL debut.