The New York Rangers have been rising to the occasion and have played well against some very good teams lately. They’ve won three in a row and three of their last four losses have been by one goal. They face one of their biggest challenges taking on the red hot Vegas Golden Knights. Vegas is in first place in the Pacific Division with a 22-13-1 record and before dropping their last two games, they had won 10 of 12.
The Golden Knights are one of four NHL teams (along with Calgary, Detroit, Washington) without a single player on the COVID protocol list, but they have been hit hard all season by injuries to key players. Max Pacioretty and Alex Martinez are both out on Injured Reserve. Mark Stone (upper body) and Nicolas Roy are listed as probable starters, but will be game time decisions.
Coach Gerard Gallant praised the Golden Knights in his post-practice remarks. “They’re forechecking well, getting some traffic at the net, battling. They’re playing really well lately, continuing to do that and playing their roles real good.”
For the Rangers this is a big game, but it has to be more significant for Gallant and Ryan Reaves. Gallant’s key to winning? “My team’s about whoever you’re playing against, play them hard and play them well…I want my guys playing a 200 foot game, playing the defensive zone well, playing the neutral zone well and work hard in the offensive zone.”
For the Rangers, Artemi Panarin is the only regular out of the lineup, on his fourth day of the COVID protocol. The coach spoke about the loss of their best player “It’s part of the game. It happens….You just don’t make a big deal about it, you put somebody else in there. It gets Laffy a chance to play more minutes and he’s succeeded so far. You adjust to it and do the best you can.” He did say that the other players have stepped up, calling it “good for our hockey team.”
He also indicated that Panarin could be back before the road trip is over, as early as Saturday in Anaheim.
This is the longest road trip of the season and when they are done, the Rangers will have 17 road games left on their schedule compared to 26 games at Madison Square Garden.
Projected lineups
Zac Jones gets his third straight start, his second in place of Nils Lundkvist. It will also be the third straight game on the second line with Strome and Goodrow for Alexis Lafrenière. He has played two of his best games this season, with almost 34 minutes of ice time. It’s the most TOI he’s had in back-to-back games this season. If he has another fine effort, it will make for a tough decision for Gallant if Panarin is back with the team on Saturday.
NEW YORK RANGERS
20 Kreider – 93 Zibanejad – 24 Kakko
13 Lafrenière – 16 Strome – 21 Goodrow
29 Hunt– 72 Chytil – 15 Gauthier
14 McKegg–17 Rooney – 75 Reaves
55 Lindgren – 23 Fox
79 Miller – 8 Trouba
25 Hajek–6 Jones
31 Shesterkin
40 Georgiev
VEGAS GOLDEN KNIGHTS
63 Evgenii Dadonov- 20 Chandler Stephenson – 61 Mark Stone
81 Jonathan Marchessault – 71 William Karlsson – 19 Reilly Smith
26 Mattias Janmark – 10 Nicolas Roy -55 Keegan Kolesar
28 Will Carrier – 21 Brett Howden – 41 Nolan Patrick
17 Ben Hutton – 7 Alex Pietrangelo
2 Zach Whitecloud – 27 Shea Theodore
3 Brayden McNabb – 52 Dylan Coughlan
90 Robin Lehner
36 Logan Thompson
The Rangers have played Vegas seven times since they joined the NHL and have only won twice, though Vegas has outscored the Rangers by only 21-20 and two of the losses came in extra time.
How to watch and the live conversation
Game time is 10pm EST so it will be a late weeknight for Ranger fans. The game will be televised on the MSG Network and 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.