New York Rangers look for a quick turnaround in Columbus

After a poor performance last night that saw the Blueshirts fall at the Garden to the Montreal Canadiens, the Rangers made the flight to Columbus, Ohio as the Blue Jackets await. After a disappointing performance from the New York Rangers, they will get the chance to figure out their poor performance and make amends as they go to the struggling Columbus Blue Jackets who are not in the best of situations themselves.

For the Rangers, it is unlikely that there will be any involvement from Chris Kreider tonight. Although the winger has missed the last couple of games due to an injury, the big power forward is expected to miss another one tonight. He could have been a big part of the Rangers had he been available for tonight. New York will be looking to find a way to extract two points in his absence.

Jaroslav Halak is expected to get the nod tonight with Igor Shesterkin having been started against the Canadiens last night. Halak’s started to improve a lot as the season has gone on and the Blueshirts seem to be hopeful of his ability to keep them in games. Halak is tasked with playing against a Columbus team that will give it everything with the Rangers in the second half of a back-to-back with travel. Tough gig.

Columbus Blue Jackets

Johnny Gaudreau – Jack Roslovic – Patrik Laine
Eric Robinson – Boone Jenner – Gustav Nyquist
Kirill Marchenko – Kent Johnson – Emil Bemstrom
Liam Foudy – Sean Kuraly – Mathieu Olivier

Vladislav Gavrikov – Adam Boqvist
Tim Berni – Erik Gudbranson
Nick Blankenburg – Andrew Peeke

Elvis Merzlikins
Daniil Tarasov

New York Rangers

Alexis Lafreniere – Mika Zibanejad – Kaapo Kakko
Artemi Panarin – Vincent Trocheck – Vitali Kravtsov
Barclay Goodrow – Filip Chytil – Jimmy Vesey
Sammy Blais – Jonny Brodzinski – Jake Leschyshyn

Ryan Lindgren – Adam Fox
K’Andre Miller – Braden Schneider
Jacob Trouba – Ben Harpur

Jaroslav Halak
Igor Shesterkin

Puck drop time and where to watch

This game is going to be starting at 7 PM Eastern. With the recent results for the Rangers, tonight is going to be viewed as an important game. They cannot afford to lose more ground after the Hurricanes nabbed a point last night and the Devils played San Jose. This is a game that the Rangers need to extract something from in order to keep pace. MSG will have the Rangers feed with Bally Sports Ohio having the Jackets production.