Happy New Year! The New York Rangers travel to Tampa to take on the Stanley Cup champions, currently sitting on top of the Atlantic Division with an NHL-best 46 points. The Lightning are fresh from an embarrassing 9-3 loss to the Florida Panthers while the Rangers lost to the same team one night earlier 4-3.
It was the worst loss for the Lightning in over a decade and they will be eager to make up for their poor showing last night. After the morning skate, Coach Gerard Gallant acknowledged that the Rangers need to be ready. Gallant said “They’re gonna be hungry. They’re gonna come back. Obviously they’re pissed off. They’re gonna be ready to play tonight. It’s tough, you have those games like that and you have to bounce back from them.” He continued “When you’ve got a lot of guys out, injured, Covid Protocols…it makes it tough…challenging for your coach and for your team. They’ll do the best they can. They’ll regroup today and try and play a real good game against us tonight.”
You can be sure the Lighting want to avoid losing two regulation games in a row for the first time this season, but they’ll have to do it without their two top goalies. Both Andrei Vasilevskiy and Brian Elliott are on the COVID protocol list so the Blueshirts should see Maxim Lagace in net.
Lagace started last night’s debacle, giving up six goals in just under 40 minutes of play. He’s a veteran of 20 NHL games, but has only played four games in the NHL since 2018-19. He did play goal for Vegas in 2017-18 under Gallant, starting 14 games and going 6-7-1.
There have been reports that Swedish rookie Hugo Alnefelt could get his first NHL start. He relieved Lagace in Sunrise and gave up three goals on seven shots.
Tampa got good news when defensemen Mikhail Sergachev and Andre Sustr came off the COVID list. That means the Rangers won’t see former draft pick Sean Day who played his first two NHL games this week.
The Rangers are riding a two game losing streak, by shootout and in regulation. They have lost two in a row in regulation only once this season. This is the first challenge the team has faced, winning only two of their last seven games. Back-to-back games against the Lightning will be a good test.
The Rangers still have the fifth most points in the NHL, but some teams are catching up. The Pittsburgh Penguins are getting healthy and have won seven in a row. They have 39 points, only three behind the Blueshirts and have a game in hand.
Coach Gallant talked about the standings. Gallant said “I don’t worry about the teams behind us. I worry about trying to catch the teams in front of us. That’s what our mentality is. You cannot worry about teams coming from behind. You’ve got to worry about winning hockey games and getting points.” It’s a good philosophy. Leave the worrying to us.
Projected lineups
Coach Gallant said he is going with the exact same lineup that started in Florida. Kevin Rooney, Ryan Lindgren, Jarred Tinordi and Alexandar Georgiev remain in the COVID protocol. With the number of mandatory days in quarantine reduced to five, it is possible that the Rangers could get Lindgren back in time for Sunday’s matinee against the Lightning, if he is showing no symptoms.
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
TAMPA BAY LIGHTNING
17 Alex Killorn – 21 Brayden Point – 7 Mathieu Joseph
18 Ondrej Palat – 91 Steven Stamkos – 79 Ross Colton
14 Pat Maroon – 41 Pierre-Edouard Bellemare – 10 Corey Perry
13 Boris Katchouk – 20 Riley Nash – 38 Remi Elie
77 Victor Hedman – 44 Jan Rutta
27 Ryan McDonagh – 24- Zach Bogosian
98 Mikhail Sergachev – 29 Andre Sustr
33 Maxime Lagace
60 Hugo Alnefelt
While they are relying on backups to their backup in net, the defense will be whole for the first time in several games. Up front they are missing Nikita Kucherov, Anthony Cirelli and Taylor Raddysh, all regulars.
The last time these teams met, the Lightning demolished the Rangers 9-3 on November 14, 2019. Only eight Rangers are left from the team that gave up five power play goals. Nine Lightning players will be playing tonight who were in that game including five who scored.
How to watch and the live conversation
Game time is 7pm and it will be televised on MSG Plus 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.
Which Tampa team will we see? More importantly, which Ranger team will we see? A lot to talk about.