The New York Rangers' centennial season struggles continue, and their next contest after an embarrassing 4-0 loss to their instate rivals in the Islanders is a trip to Pittsburgh to face the Penguins for the first time since October 11 of last year. Things are a lot different now than they were then, with the Pens sitting pretty at 2nd in the Metro Division and riding a five game win streak with a solid 6-2-2 record in their last 10 games. Meanwhile, New York is still in the basement by seven points from 7th placed Philadelphia, and things really couldn't be worse with a dismal 2-8-0 record in their own last 10 games. And with star forward Artemi Panarin potentially on a trade train in the coming weeks, it's safe to say that letter from Drury made things worse than they already were.
The Rangers did at least win the last contest against Pittsburgh on October 11, a dominant 6-1 win at PPG Paints Arena, a few days after a season and home opening 3-0 loss to the Pens at the Garden on October 7. In that 6-1 win, Adam Fox provided 2 goals and an assist while young center Adam Edstrom added a pair of assists himself. Mika Zibanejad opened the initial scoring, and since then has been the Rangers' brightest player in spite of everyone else, even before Panarin was shut down just before this year's Winter Olympics in Milan for "roster management". Of course, Panarin wouldn't have been selected for an Olympic roster anyway, since Russia has been eternally banned from the Games since the 2018 Games in PyeongChang, South Korea. Panarin is doing alright this season, with 19 goals and 38 assists for 57 points, and that actually leads the team in the latter category.
Projected lineups for the Rangers' Saturday afternoon matinee are as follows. In the top offensive line, it'll be captain J.T. Miller alongside Zibanejad and the BC superstar Gabe Perreault, who will likely continue filling in that spot since it's typically used for Panarin. The second line will be made up of Will Cuylle, Vincent Trocheck and Alexis Lafrenière, another Ranger that's seen his name ping around trade boards quite frequently in the last couple of weeks. Was that perceived falling out with Rangers President and GM Chris Drury just another bit of drama that didn't go anywhere? We shall see. The Rangers' injury list remains unchanged, with Igor Shesterkin still on injured reserve, which the 30 year old has been on since the beginning of this month as well as Adam Fox and Adam Edstrom, both dealing with lower-body injuries, with Fox having spent as much time on IR as Shesterkin.
The Penguins' lineup will be Rickard Rakell, captain Sidney Crosby and Justin Brazeau on the top offensive line with recently acquired Blue Jacket Egor Chinakhov alongside Tommy Novak and Kevin Hayes representing the Pens' 2nd offensive line. The Penguins are also dealing with an outage at the LW position, with Crosby's other dynamic duo half Evgeni Malkin out for undisclosed reasons, in addition to Kris Letang at RW. Bryan Rust is also out due to him serving a three game suspension after his illegal head check to Vancouver's Brock Boeser.
Comparing the two teams statistically draws not surprising numbers, starting with the Penguins ranked 13th in the league on goals for, with the Rangers 26th. Pittsburgh tallies 3.35 goals for games played, good for seventh in the league, while New York manages 2.62, ranking 27th in that category. The Rangers have also given up the 11th most goals total this season with 172, while Pittsburgh has allowed 147, putting them in the bottom five of the league rank. On the power play, the Penguins rank third in the league with a percentage of 27.2 while New York ranks ninth at nearly 23 percent, so there's at least one statistic in the Blueshirts' favor. For the penalty kill, Pittsburgh has a percentage of 83.8, good for fourth in the league while New York ranks right in the middle at 16th with a 79.5% PK.