After enduring a tough loss last night at the hands of Brady Tkachuk and the Ottawa Senators, the Rangers will take on another original six franchise as they host the Chicago Blackhawks. As the Rangers complete this back-to-back set, they will be looking to try and avenge a disappointing result from last night in a game they should have won but managed to lose anyway.
Chicago is openly in the middle of a rebuild. For the Blackhawks, the big conversation is about where they trade two of their big stalwarts to and not whether or not they are competing for the cup at the end of the year. Rebuilding teams will often be tough to beat because the players on the roster realize that there is nothing to lose. That means that the Rangers will have to be attentive tonight.
Jaroslav Halak will get the nod tonight. Halak is coming off the back of his first win as a member of the New York Rangers. It only took seven tries and after a rough start with the Rangers, the Slovakian netminder has gotten better with time. New York became the 7th different Franchise Halak has recorded a win making him part of a very illusive club. Not many people get that kind of record.
New York will be using a slightly different roster tonight as the Blueshirts recalled forward Jonny Brodzinski and defenseman Ben Harpur from the Hartford Wolf Pack of the American Hockey League while sending down defenseman Zac Jones. Whether or not that is for the long term remains to be seen, but there are reasons for this.
One of the Rangers forwards remains a game-time decision. While there are rumors about how it is, officially the Blueshirts have declined to announce it. That is why Brodzinski was recalled from Hartford, just in case the forward in question is not able to go tonight. It’s going to be interesting to see what the Rangers do with the long-term ramifications of these roster moves.
New York Rangers
Chris Kreider – Mika Zibanejad – Jimmy Vesey
Artemi Panarin – Filip Chytil – Vitali Kravtsov
Alexis Lafreniere – Vincent Trocheck – Kaapo Kakko
Sammy Blais – Barclay Goodrow – Julien Gauthier
Ryan Lindgren – Adam Fox
K’Andre Miller – Braden Schneider
Libor Hajek – Jacob Trouba
Jaroslav Halak
Igor Shesterkin
Chicago Blackhawks
Andreas Athanasiou – Jonathan Toews – Patrick Kane
Philipp Kurashev – Max Domi – Taylor Raddysh
Jujhar Khaira – Jason Dickinson – Colin Blackwell
Boris Katchouk – MacKenzie Entwistle – Reese Johnson
Jack Johnson – Seth Jones
Filip Roos – Connor Murphy
Jake McCabe – Caleb Jones
Petr Mrazek
Arvid Soderblom
Puck drop and where to watch
This game will be on MSG as always if you want to watch the Rangers feed. NBC Sports Chicago will have the Blackhawks feed for any of the Blueshirts faithful that are out in the Windy City. This is going to be a difficult task for New York. Teams in the shoes of the Chicago Blackhawks have nothing to lose and when a team like the Blueshirts has had the rough start that they have endured, this doesn’t seem like fun yet.