The New York Rangers’ stay in first place was short-lived as the Washington Capitals retook the top position by beating the pesky Buffalo Sabres 3-2 in a shootout. The will close out their season series against the Nashville Predators at Madison Square Garden tonight and it won’t be easy.
The Predators are on a roll, riding a four-game winning streak and they are going to try to go three for three against the New York Metro area teams. The Rangers will be the toughest team they will face as their four wins came against the Islanders, Devils, Montreal and Detroit. Nashville has won seven of ten, but again, all but one of the teams they beat are out of the playoff picture.
Igor Shesterkin is available to come off injured reserve, but it will be Alexandar Georgiev in net of the Rangers tonight. Shesterkin has been skating and Gerard Gallant said “He looks fine, he’s moving, he’s on the ice. Everything is going according to plan. Trainers will tell me when he’s ready.”
The Rangers won their first outing against the Predators, 3-1 in Nashville on October 21. At the time it was the best overall game of the five the Rangers had played since the start of the season. Filip Chytil had a first period goal while Alexis Lafrenière scored the game winner with nine minutes left it in the game.
One match up to watch is on defense as Adam Fox will take on Roman Josi. Josi is second in league in defense scoring with 27 points, behind Fox who has 29. Josi has nine goals, second to Cale Makar who leads with 12. It’s another in a series of games that pits Fox against some of his top rivals. His Rangers prevailed against Seth Jones, Brent Burns and Erik Karlsson, but lost to Makar.
Projected lineups
No injuries so it means the exact same lineup for the Rangers that has started the last eight games. Igor Shesterkin was in net for the first meeting between the team. Georgiev has been very good and will continue in net. He is 1-1 lifetime against Nashville with a 2.03 goals against average (GAA) and a .927 save percentage (Sv%).
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
71 Kinkaid
NASHVILLE PREDATORS
28 Eeli Tolvanen – 91 Ryan Johansen – 11 Luke Kunin
9 Filip Forsberg – 64 Mikael Granlund – 26 Philip Tomasino
13 Yakov Trenin – 10 Colton Sissons – 84 Tanner Jeannot
21 Nick Cousins – 82 Thomas Novak – 24 Matt Luff
59 Roman Josi – 57 Dante Fabbro
14 Mattias Ekholm – 45 Alexandre Carrier
5 Matt Benning – 90 Mark Boroweicki
74 Juuse Saros
33 David Rittich
Center Matt Duchene will not play with an upper body injury, but Colton Scissons returns to the lineup after missing one game. That ‘s a big loss for the Predators as Duchene is third on the team with 25 points and leads in goals scored with 13.
Juuse Saros will be in goal for Nashville. His numbers this season are very good with a 2.35 GAA and .921 Sv% with a 12-8-1 record. He was in goal for the 3-1 loss in October, allowing two goals on 29 shots. Despite a lifetime .918 Sv% and 2.35 GAA against the Rangers, he has won only once in six games.
How to watch and the live conversation
Game time is 7pm and it will be telecast on the MSG Network. Nationally, the game will be available on ESPN+. 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.
Join your fellow Rangers fans as we root the Rangers on to a sweep of their season series against Nashville.