Your New York Rangers are back at it tonight as the Carolina Hurricanes will be the hosts for the Blueshirts. After defeating the Kraken last night, this back-to-back set sees the Rangers visit the home of the hottest team in the NHL. This has all the makings of a game that could go really wrong for the Rangers. Everyone talks about the Bruins having single-digit regulation losses, but Carolina itself only has 9 of them.
For the Rangers, there’s one change to the lineup projected. Shesterkin out for Halak. Shesterkin played last night against the Kraken and it doesn’t make sense to force Shesterkin to play both legs of a back-to-back when you have someone like Halak who has proven to be a capable backup. With the Slovakian improving over the year, he will be given one heck of a test. Playing well against the Hurricanes is going to show everything Halak is.
The last time these two teams met, the Rangers ended Carolina’s 17-game point streak and 12-game winning streak. Carolina now has points in 10 straight with five straight wins. It’s rare that a team will get to spoil two streaks like this of the same team in a season, but the chance will present itself to the Blueshirts tonight. If they can take advantage, they will start to cut the gap to the rampant Canes at the top of the division.
New York Rangers
Artemi Panarin – Mika Zibanejad – Vladimir Tarasenko
Chris Kreider – Vincent Trocheck – Vitali Kravtsov
Alexis Lafreniere – Filip Chytil – Kaapo Kakko
Jimmy Vesey – Barclay Goodrow – Julien Gauthier
Ryan Lindgren – Adam Fox
K’Andre Miller – Jacob Trouba
Niko Mikkola – Braden Schneider
Jaroslav Halak
Igor Shesterkin
Carolina Hurricanes
Teuvo Teravainen – Sebastian Aho – Seth Jarvis
Andrei Svechnikov – Jesperi Kotkaniemi – Martin Necas
Jordan Martinook – Jordan Staal – Jesper Fast
Derek Stepan – Paul Stastny – Stefan Noesen
Jaccob Slavin – Brent Burns
Brady Skjei – Brett Pesce
Calvin de Haan – Jalen Chatfield
Frederik Andersen
Antti Raanta
Puck drop time and where to watch
As the Rangers complete this back-to-back set, this game will be shown on the NHL Network. MSG 2 will also be covering the game for those that want the New York broadcast. For those in the Raleigh area, Bally Sports South will be covering the game for the Hurricanes. Sportsnet Now will have the game for those that want to watch up in Canada as this game starts at 7 PM Eastern. It’ll be a game of the year.