Pinch yourselves, the New York Rangers are in the Eastern Conference Finals for the first time since 2015. They are hoping to reverse the results of their last trip that ended in a seven game loss to the same Tampa Bay Lightning.
The Lightning are well rested with eight full days between the last game of their sweep of the Florida Panthers and tonight. The Rangers are on an emotional high, but could have used at least another day of rest. The question everyone is asking is whether the long layoff will hurt or help the defending champions.
The prime storyline is the battle between the two best goalies in the world. Andrei Vasilevskiy is acknowledged as one of the greatest playoff goalies ever. Overall he is 8-3 in the playoffs with a .932 Save Percentage (Sv%) and a 2.22 Goals Against Average (GAA). Against the Panthers he reached another level with a .981 Sv% and a 0.75 GAA. Yes, those numbers are correct.
That said, Igor Shesterkin has not been too bad either. Overall he is 8-5 with a .928 Sv% and a 2.68 GAA. After Game Five against Pittsburgh he has gone 7-3 with a .939 Sv% and a 2.09 GAA. At even strength, he has a .950 Sv% and a 1.65 GAA.
If there’s one difference in the numbers between the two netminders, it’s how many goals they allowed compared to the number of goals expected. For Vasilevskiy, he was expected to give up 34.49 goals and allowed 25 (-9.49). Shesterkin was better (-14.53), allowing 21 goals when the opposition was expected to score 35.53 times.
Projected starting lineups
Barclay Goodrow is the only former Tampa player in the Rangers lineup as he was important piece of the last two Stanley Cup championship teams. He will be countered by Ryan McDonagh, the former Rangers team captain who was traded to Tampa in 2018.
NEW YORK RANGERS
20 Kreider – 93 Zibanejad – 77 Vatrano
10 Panarin – 16 Strome – 18 Copp
13 Lafreniere -72 Chytil – 24 Kakko
64 Motte – 21 Goodow – 75 Reaves
55 Lindgren – 23 Fox
79 Miller – 8 Trouba
61 Braun – 54 Schneider
31 Shesterkin
40 Georgiev
TAMPA BAY LIGHTNING
91 Steven Stamkos – 71 Anthony Cirelli – 86 Nikita Kucherov
18 Ondrej Palat – 20 Nicholas Paul – 17 Alex Killorn
38 Brandon Hagel -79 Ross Colton – 10 Corey Perry
14 Pat Maroon – 41 Pierre-Edouard Bellemare
77 Victor Hedman – 81 Erik Cernak
27 Ryan McDonagh – 24 Zach Bogosian
98 Mikhail Sergachev – 52 Cal Foote
44 Jan Rutta
88 Andrei Vasilevskiy
1 Brian Elliott
Brayden Point was back on the ice, but not with his teammates and it looks like he won’t be back for a while. Tampa coach Jon Cooper is going with an 11-7 lineup with Jan Rutta as the spare defenseman.
How to watch and the live conversation
Get ready for another round of Sean McDonough and Ray Ferraro as ESPN will be carrying all of the Eastern Conference Finals games. The national live stream is on ESPN+. Game time is 8pm.
As usual, the MSG Network will be providing full pre-game coverage at 7:30pm and an hourlong postgame show.
Blue Line Station’s live conversation is now active and you can join your fellow Rangers fans as we live and die with our favorite team. To join the chat, use the comments section below!