The New York Rangers are coming off their worst loss of the season, a 5-1 spanking by the Columbus Blue Jackets on Sunday. For two days we’ve heard that the team didn’t play badly, but just couldn’t get a puck past rookie goalie Daniil Tarasov. That’s all true, but the fact remains that the team was outplayed once again in the third period and their offense has gone cold.
Of course, it didn’t help that Jaroslav Halak had a dreadful night in net for the Rangers, allowing three stop-able goals. It will be Igor Shesterkin back in the net tonight. The question is whether he will play against the Islanders on Wednesday on consecutive nights.
To complicate matters further, Filip Chytil is out indefinitely with an “upper body industry” that looks to be a concussion. That he sustained the injury in an accidental collision with Mike Sillinger makes it even more frustrating. Chytil has missed 26 games over the last two seasons and that raised questions about his durability. The Rangers say that he should be back next week. Fingers crossed.
Alexandar Georgiev leads the defending Stanley Cup champions into Madison Square Garden and if there is any player who has something to prove, it is the former Ranger. Anointed as the number one goalie for Colorado, he is 3-0-1 with a 2.76 Goals Against Average and a .908 Save Percentage, good but not great numbers. Dryden Hunt will also be returning to MSG after being claimed on waivers. He is scoreless in two games as an Avalanche. Expect him to throw the body against his former teammates and he had five hits in six minutes of ice time in his last game against Vegas.
After scoring 17 goals in four games (4.25 GPG) the Blueshirts have scored only three goals in the last two games with one goal coming on a two-man advantage.
The Rangers lost both of their games last season to the Avs by a combined score of 11-5. Shesterkin was out for both of those games with Adam Huska the sacrificial lamb in the first, a 7-3 loss at MSG, and Georgiev was in the net for a 4-2 loss in Denver.
It will be Shesterkin’s first start against the Avalanche since he made his NHL debut against them on January 7, 2020. He made 29 saves in a 5-3 win at the Garden.
Projected starting lineups
To replace Chytil, Barclay Goodrow will center the third line between Jimmy Vesey and Vitali Kravtsov. If the Rangers will be looking for depth scoring it could be tough. The bottom six scored a grand total of 29 goals in the NHL last season.
Another area the Rangers could look for some scoring is from the defense. Apart from Adam Fox who has one goal and five assists, the rest of the blueliners are scoreless with only six assists.
Of course, this is a chance to see an Adam Fox-Cale Makar match-up. Makar has matched Fox this season with six points, but he has no goals.
New York Rangers
20 Kreider – 93 Zibanejad – 24 Kakko
10 Panarin – 16 Trocheck– 13 Lafreniere
26 Vesey 21 Goodrow – 74 Kravtsov
91 Blais– 22 Carpenter – 75 Reaves
55 Lindgren – 23 Fox
79 Miller – 8 Trouba
6 Jones – 4 Schneider
31 Shesterkin
41 Halak
Colorado Avalanche
62 Artturi Lehkonen – 29 Nathan MacKinnon – 96 Mikko Rantanen
13 Valeri Nichushkin – 18 Alex Newhook – 9 Evan Rodrigues
11 Andrew Cogliano – 37 J.T. Compher – 25- Logan O’Connor
22 Dryden Hunt – 57 Mikhail Maltsev – 61 Martin Kaut
7 Devon Toews – 8 Cale Makar
4 Bowen Byram – 42 Josh Manson
49 Samuel Girard – 6 Erik Johnson
40 Alexandar Georgiev
39 Pavel Francouz
How to watch & the live conversation
The game starts at 8 pm and it will be televised nationally on ESPN. The live stream will be on ESPN+. This is the first of two straight national games as the tilt versus the Islanders tomorrow will be on TNT. Oh, joy.
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