Rangers visit PPG Paints Arena in Pittsburgh to face Penguins
By Conor Power
After an overtime victory in Buffalo last night, the Rangers will be looking to make it 3 consecutive wins as they will go to the Steel City to take on their long-time rivals the Pittsburgh Penguins. With the Penguins in the first wild-card spot, they are the chasing team to the New York Rangers With 7 points separating the two clubs going into their meeting in Pittsburgh, this has the ability to really take the Rangers out of the wild-card chase.
In terms of team news, there will be no Ryan Lindgren. Lindgren has been out since taking a hit from Washington’s TJ Oshie a few weeks ago and is still listed as day-to-day. Despite being closer, he’s still not healthy enough to take the ice in Pittsburgh. It’ll likely be Ben Harpur playing on the third pairing pushing Niko Mikkola to play next to Adam Fox. Another big test for the Rangers’ deadline acquisition from St Louis.
Jaroslav Halak will go tonight for the Blueshirts. With the Slovakian getting the nod, we will get to see the continued comeback of the journeyman netminder. After an incredibly rough start to the season, the Rangers’ backup has been able to bounce back in a major way. He’s been able to help New York relieve some of the strain on starting goalie Igor Shesterkin with his recent good performances.
New York Rangers
Chris Kreider – Mika Zibanejad – Vladimir Tarasenko
Artemi Panarin – Vincent Trocheck – Patrick Kane
Alexis Lafreniere – Filip Chytil – Kaapo Kakko
Jimmy Vesey – Barclay Goodrow – Tyler Motte
K’Andre Miller – Jacob Trouba
Niko Mikkola – Adam Fox
Ben Harpur – Braden Schneider
Jaroslav Halak
Igor Shesterkin
Pittsburgh Penguins
Jake Guentzel – Sidney Crosby – Bryan Rust
Jason Zucker – Evgeni Malkin – Alex Nylander
Drew O’Connor – Mikael Granlund – Rickard Rakell
Danton Heinen – Jeff Carter – Josh Archibald
Marcus Pettersson – Kris Letang
Brian Dumoulin – Jeff Petry
Dmitry Kulikov – Jan Rutta
Tristan Jarry
Casey DeSmith
Puck drop time and where to watch
This is a 3 PM Eastern Puck drop with the Rangers visiting their Metropolitan Division rivals. TNT will have the coverage of this game which means no Sam and Joe on the call tonight. It’s a national broadcast which means the eyes of the hockey world will be on the Blueshirts in this one. If the Rangers want to prove that they have genuine ambitions of taking home Lord Stanley’s mug this summer, they need to two points tonight.