Game One was a playoff game for the ages, a triple overtime instant classic that had all of the elements you would want, except for the final score.  This is not an elimination game, but it comes close to being a must win for the New York Rangers as they don’t want to go down 2-0 in the series and headed to a hostile arena.
It will be Louis Domingue in net for Pittsburgh and if the Rangers cannot take advantage of facing a third string goalie for the second straight game, that is a big issue. Also out is Rickard Rakell with Jason Zucker a game time decision, but slotted into the starting lineup.
As for the Rangers, Ryan Lindgren is a gametime decision and another player is apparently iffy for the game, but we won’t know until warmups.
Projected starting lineups
NEW YORK RANGERS
20 Kreider – 93 Zibanejad – 77 Vatrano
10 Panarin – 16 Strome – 18 Copp
13 Lafreniere -72 Chytil – 24 Kakko
21 Goodrow– 17 Rooney – 75 Reaves
55 Lindgren -23 Fox
79 Miller -8  Trouba
12 Nemeth -54 Schneider
31 Shesterkin
40Â Georgiev
PITTSBURGH PENGUINS
59 Jake Guentzel – 87 Sidney Crosby – 17 Bryan Rust
16 Jason Zucker – 71- Evgeni Malkin – 42 Kasperi Kapanen
43 Danton Heinen – 77 Jeff Carter -23 Brock McGinn –
11 Brian Boyle – 53 Teddy Blueger – 9 Evan Rodrigues
8 Brian Dumoulin – 58 Kris Letang
5 Mike Matheson – 2 Chad Ruhwedel
28 Marcus Pettersson – 6 John Marino
70 Louis Domingue
33 Alex D’Orio
How to watch and the live conversation
The game is scheduled to start at 7pm, but that means probably about 7:15pm. There are two options if you are in the New York area. The MSG Network will be providing pre and post game coverage and will also televise all of the First Round games.
The national telecast will be on TNT if you prefer them to Sam Rosen and Joe Micheletti (why would you?). TNT is carrying the Avalanche-Predators game right after the Rangers game so you can be sure they will dump out of Rangers coverage as soon the game is over. When the game went to overtime on ESPN, they started the Colorado-Nashville game on ESPNU and have ESPN News as the fallback if the ESPN2 game goes to overtime as well. TNT is carrying the Rangers game followed by the Colorado-Nashville game with sister station TBS is carrying the Washington-Florida and Calgary-Dallas games.  The fall back channels for Turner Sports are TruTV and HLN.
As for live streaming, any games on TNT or TBS are available on their own apps and websites if you have a cable or satellite subscription and can authenticate your access. If you don’t have cable or satellite your are out of luck. The MSG GO app should work as well for the local telecast, but you need a cable subscription for that as well.
Blue Line Station’s live conversation is active now and we will be live for every playoff game. Please join in as we watch our favorite hockey team embark on what we hope will be a long postseason journey.
You can join the conversation in the comments section below.