After their Eastern Conference Final bout last season that the Lightning took in six games, New York will be provided with their second chance to get revenge against the team that knocked them out of contention for the Stanley Cup last year. With the New York Rangers looking to take their second win of the season over the lightning after winning the first game 3-1 in the season opener, there is some very big news.
Former first overall pick and one of the kid line is going to be left out of this one as Alexis Lafreniere is going to be benched in favor of Sammy Blais. This is coming straight from Gerard Gallant. After Lafreniere was demoted to the fourth line in the defeat to Washington, the Rangers young forward is going to be missing this one entirely due to his recent poor run of games. Whether or not this is a good decision is debatable.
With that being the only change to the Rangers lineup, it is expected we see the Russian shot stopper Igor Shesterkin once again as he looks to continue his good performances. He played well in vein during the defeat at the hands of the Washington Capitals, but he wasn’t super human and it meant that the Capitals were able to soundly defeat the Rangers. Hopefully, tonight there will be some support for the netminder.
New York Rangers
Chris Kreider – Mika Zibanejad – Kaapo Kakko
Artemi Panarin – Vincent Trocheck – Barclay Goodrow
Vitali Kravtsov – Filip Chytil – Julien Gauthier
Sammy Blais – Jonny Brodzinski – Jimmy Vesey
Ryan Lindgren – Adam Fox
K’Andre Miller – Jacob Trouba
Ben Harpur – Braden Schneider
Igor Shesterkin
Jaroslav Halak
Tampa Bay Lightning
Brandon Hagel – Brayden Point – Nikita Kucherov
Steven Stamkos — Nicholas Paul – Ross Colton
Pat Maroon – Anthony Cirelli – Alex Killorn
Vladislav Namestnikov – Pierre-Edouard Bellemare – Corey Perry
Victor Hedman – Zach Bogosian
Ian Cole – Erik Cernak
Mikhail Sergachev – Nick Perbix
Andrei Vasilevskiy
Brian Elliott
Puck drop time and where to watch
This 7 PM Eastern puck drop between the two teams that battled it out for the right to represent the Eastern Conference last season during the playoffs will be available on the MSG network for those fans in New York. Bally Sports Sun will be covering the game for the Tampa Bay Lightning so there will be options for fans all over the country as the Rangers seek to claim two more points in their revenege of last years playoff performance.