For the New York Rangers, tonight marks the start of the second game of the young season with the team that currently resides at the top of the Metropolitan Division. It’s the New Jersey Devils who are coming to town and the Rangers will be looking for their fourth win in a row tonight over their cross-river rivals. These two teams have had plenty of altercations over the years and tonight should be another enjoyable contest.
Since getting back from Denver, there’s not been major team news for the Rangers. Briefly, defenseman Ben Harpur was sent down to the Hartford Wolf Pack of the American Hockey League. This seems to be nothing more than a day-to-day move to continue to accrue cap space because Harpur is back up and never left the Rangers’ practice despite being sent down on paper.
It currently remains unclear as to who is going to go on the fourth line tonight. Vitali Kravtsov and Julien Gauthier swapped in for each other on that line taking rushes so it could be either. NHL.com has it listed as Gauthier going tonight with Sammy Blais and Jonny Brodzinski who seems to have beaten out Ryan Carpenter for a spot on the roster with the Blueshirts for the time being. Carpenter was assigned to Hartford after the Avalanche game.
New York Rangers
Alexis Lafreniere – Mika Zibanejad – Kaapo Kakko
Artemi Panarin – Filip Chytil – Barclay Goodrow
Chris Kreider – Vincent Trocheck – Jimmy Vesey
Sammy Blais – Jonny Brodzinski – Julien Gauthier
Ryan Lindgren – Adam Fox
K’Andre Miller – Jacob Trouba
Libor Hajek – Braden Schneider
Igor Shesterkin
Jaroslav Halak
New Jersey Devils
Tomas Tatar – Nico Hischier – Jesper Bratt
Erik Haula – Jack Hughes – Dawson Mercer
Miles Wood – Michael McLeod – Fabian Zetterlund
Yegor Sharangovich – Jesper Boqvist – Alexander Holtz
Jonas Siegenthaler – Dougie Hamilton
Ryan Graves – John Marino
Damon Severson – Brendan Smith
Vitek Vanecek
Akira Schmid
Puck drop time and where to watch
This game will get underway at a little after 7 PM Eastern as the two Metropolitan area teams will be going toe to toe at Madison Square Garden for the second time this year. This should be an excellent game as the Devils come to town. After beating the Rangers in the previous meeting of the two hockey clubs, the Blueshirts will be looking for revenge as they continue to cement themselves in the playoff hunt.