Rangers start final road game of the regular season in Columbus

As the New York Rangers embark on their final road game of the season, they are going to the Buckeye State as they will take on one of the teams that are hunting for the first overall pick. There’s nothing to really play for with the Rangers basically locked into third in the division, and the Blue Jackets actively playing with a roster that would not have been eligible for the preseason due to the 8 veterans rule.

For the Rangers, they get to use this game as a warm-up with their full-strength roster for the first time in way too long due to the injuries sustained by Ryan Lindgren and Patrick Kane as the Blueshirts are trying to make the wheels spin smoothly ahead of the postseason with the Rangers looking to try and make another deep run. As they loaded up at the deadline, the goal is to go deep and they have no excuses this year.

New York Rangers

Chris Kreider – Mika Zibanejad – Patrick Kane
Artemi Panarin – Vincent Trocheck – Vladimir Tarasenko
Alexis Lafreniere – Filip Chytil – Kaapo Kakko
Jimmy Vesey – Barclay Goodrow – Tyler Motte

Ryan Lindgren — Adam Fox
K’Andre Miller — Jacob Trouba
Niko Mikkola — Braden Schneider

Igor Shesterkin
Jaroslav Halak

Columbus Blue Jackets

Johnny Gaudreau – Boone Jenner – Kirill Marchenko
Kent Johnson – Jack Roslovic – Liam Foudy
Eric Robinson – Sean Kuraly — Emil Bemstrom
Joona Luoto – Hunter McKown – Trey Fix-Wolansky

Gavin Bayreuther – Andrew Peeke
David Jiricek – Adam Boqvist
Marcus Bjork – Tim Berni

Michael Hutchinson
Jon Gillies

Puck drop time and where to watch

This game is a 7 PM puck drop for the Blueshirts as they will be looking to try to prepare themselves for some playoff-intensity hockey ahead of what will hopefully be a deep run. With no cap space to call up players from the Hartford Wolf Pack, resting players is not an option so they best bet is to go the other way and try to get the best of the team firing in an attempt to spark playoff-style goals before the postseason starts.