The good news for New York Rangers fans if that both Ryan Strome and Filip Chytil will be playing tonight, according to Coach Gerard Gallant. Meanwhile, Lightning forward Brayden Point is not going to play in Game Five.
The Blueshirts will be looking for their ninth win in a row at Madison Square Garden with a win cementing their advantage in this series and putting Tampa in a two game must-win situation.
There’s not much to say about this game. The Rangers need to win and to do that, they need to get on the scoreboard early and get more tough shots on Andrei Vasilevskiy than they did in the last two games in Tampa.
Gerard Gallant has discounted game-to-game momentum, saying that it simply doesn’t exist. With the two wins, the belief is that the Lightning have the momentum, but we will see of home ice can overcome that.
Projected starting lineups
NEW YORK RANGERS
20 Kreider – 93 Zibanejad – 77 Vatrano
10 Panarin – 16 Strome – 18 Copp
13 Lafreniere -72 Chytil – 24 Kakko
64 Motte – 21 Goodrow – 75 Reaves
55 Lindgren – 23 Fox
79 Miller – 8 Trouba
61 Braun – 54 Schneider
31 Shesterkin
40 Georgiev
TAMPA BAY LIGHTNING
18 Ondrej Palat -91 Steven Stamkos – – 86 Nikita Kucherov
38 Brandon Hagel -71 Anthony Cirelli – 17 Alex Killorn
79 Ross Colton – 20 Nicholas Paul – 10 Corey Perry
14 Pat Maroon – 41 Pierre-Edouard Bellemare – 16 Riley Nash
77 Victor Hedman -44 Jan Rutta
27 Ryan McDonagh – 81 Erik Cernak
98 Mikhail Sergachev -24 Zach Bogosian
88 Andrei Vasilevskiy
1 Brian Elliott
How to watch and the live conversation
The game starts at 8pm and it will be televised on ESPN. The live stream will be on ESPN+. As usual, MSG Network will have a full pregame show at 7:30pm and an hourlong postgame show as soon as the game ends.
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