Finally! Rangers vs Florida preview & live conversation

It’s been 13 days since the New York Rangers last played a hockey game, but it feels more like months.  The team had a game day skate in Sunrise this morning and all indications are that the game will be played.  Thank you hockey gods!

It will mark Igor Shesterkin’s first appearance since he left the third period of a shutout win over the San Jose Sharks at Madison Square Garden on December 3.  His “day-to-day” lower body injury ended up stretching to 26 days though he was ready to return a week ago.

They will need him as this is the beginning of a tough stretch of games for the Rangers.  It will be opportunity for the team to prove that they are for real, starting with four straight games against some of the NHL’s elite teams including Florida, Tampa (twice) and Edmonton.

The one knock against this Rangers team has been their relative inability to beat teams in the playoff mix.  Their record against teams currently in the playoffs is a mediocre 3-7-2.  Of course, that means their record against non-playoff teams is a scintillating 16-0-2.

After the skate, Coach Gerard Gallant said “Fortunately, we had three real good practices and hopefully we’re ready to play against a real good team tonight…we’ll have to be at our best tonight. ”

Getting healthy (sort of)

The long break was a chance for the Rangers to get fully recovered from injuries and both Artemi Panarin and Igor Shesterkin will be in the lineup.  Out due to COVID are Ryan Lindgren and Kevin Rooney, while Jarred Tinordi and Alexandar Georgiev were not supposed to play anyway.  It means that Libor Hajek will partner with Adam Fox, an opportunity for him to play heavy minutes and strut his stuff. Gallant said “It gives Libor a chance to go out and do his job and show what he’s made of.  He’s wanted that job all year long…he’s a good kid and worked hard all year, it’s an opportunity.”

The young defenseman spoke about how hard it was to sit for 25 games. “That was kind of hard, but that’s the sport…I had to grow up in my head, I feel more comfortable, trusting myself more, feel better with the puck…keep growing like that.”

Hajek is proving why the Rangers didn’t want to risk putting him on waivers so he could play in Hartford.  The question will be what happens to him when Lindgren is ready to come back in about a week.

Gallant also said that Greg McKegg will replace Rooney in the lineup.

As much as the Rangers got healthy, the Florida Panthers did too.  Aleksander Barkov, their best player, will be back in the lineup for the first time since a lower body injury in early December knocked him out for about three weeks.  Mason Marchmant has missed the last 17 games with an upper body injury.

Jonathan Huberdeau, their leading scorer, had been added to the COVID list two days ago, but was restored to the lineup after he tested negative.  Four Panthers had false positives and will play including MacKenzie Weegar and Eetu Luostarin.  The only Florida player on the COVID list is defenseman Olli Juolevi.

Looking for revenge

The Panthers will be looking to get even with the Rangers. They had come into their game in New York on November 8 with a record of 10-0-1 with their only defeat a 3-2 shootout loss to the Bruins. That record matched the best start (21 of 22 points) by any team in NHL history.   The Blueshirts dealt them their first loss of the season.

The score was 4-3 and it was a wild one. The Rangers had a 4-0 lead going into the third period and the Panthers mounted a furious comeback, pulling with a goal by scoring twice in the last 1:26 minutes of play.  Igor Shesterkin was the star, . making 42 saves, the most he has had to make in any game this season.  Despite the outcome, the team and Gallant were uniformly disgusted by their performance in the third period and said so after the game.

Including that game, the Panthers record since is 8-7-4 as they have been hampered by numerous injuries.  With their 18-7-4 record they have dropped behind Tampa and Toronto in the Atlantic Division standings.  They have lost three in a row while being outscored 15-5 in those games.

Projected lineups

It’s much the same lineup for the Rangers that they used before the break.

NEW YORK RANGERS

20 Kreider – 93 Zibanejad – 24 Kakko
10 Panarin – 16 Strome – 29 Hunt
13 Lafrenière– 72 Chytil  – 15 Gauthier
21 Goodrow -14 McKegg–  75 Reaves

25 Hajek – 23 Fox
79 Miller – 8 Trouba
12 Nemeth – 27 Lundkvist

31 Shesterkin
71 Kinkaid

FLORIDA PANTHERS

23 Carter Verhaege – 16 Aleksander Barkov – 91 Anthony Duclair
11 Jonathan Huberdeau –  9 Sam Bennett – 13 Sam Reinhart
17 Mason Marchment -15 Anton Lundell –  78 Maxim Mamin
94 Ryan Lomberg – 27 Eetu Luostarinen – 70 Patric Hornqvist

52 MacKenzie Weegar – 5 Aaron Ekblad
42 Gustav Forsling – 7 Radko Gudas
32 Lucas Carlsson –  62 Brandon Montour

72 Sergei Bobrovsky
30 Jonas Johansson

The break really helped the Panthers get healthy.  The last time the Rangers played Florida they were missing Barkov, Bennett and Bobrovsky.  They are still missing Noel Acciari and Markus Nutivaara, out with injuries.

Sergei Bobrovsky will be in net and is having a bounceback season with a  12-3-2 record, a 2.47 GAA and .917 save percentage (Sv%).  Lifetime against the Rangers he is 11-10-2 with a 2.78 GAA and .908 Sv%.   He is best friends with former teammate Artemi Panarin and the Breadman has torched him for five goals in the five games they have opposed each other.

How to watch and the live conversation

Game time is 7pm and it will be televised on MSG2 with the national telecast on ESPN+.  The radiocast will be on WEPN 1050AM.

As usual, 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. It’s been sort of working recently so we shall see.  Maybe it got fixed during the break.

It should a lively conversation with some very hockey-starved participants as we look to see if the Rangers can beat a playoff-bound opponent.