Salut to Sam Rosen Night at the Garden allowed the New York Rangers to pick up two points and move back towards the playoff places. With teams dropping points around the Blueshirts in the standings, the Rangers will be looking to capitalize as they venture out to California. This isn't the same California road trip that used to see teams get slaughtered by the three best teams in the Western Conference, but it can still trip the Rangers up if they are not careful.
Tonight, the opponent is the Los Angeles Kings. By far the best team in California, the Kings have a buzzsaw at home all season. Boasting a ridiculous 23-3-4 in the City of Angels, the Kings have the best home record in hockey, putting up seven on both ends of a back-to-back against the Boston Bruins and Carolina Hurricanes. They've been a machine in LA, and the Rangers could be in for a long night if they do not play up to the standard tonight.
The Blueshirts are looking to build on that miracle win over Vancouver. They need to do a better job generating offense. Running into the barn of the best home team in the NHL and playing as they did against Vancouver will get the Rangers killed. This will be a tough game if the Rangers play at the levels we saw at the beginning of the year, forget how they've been playing recently.
Projected Lineups
New York Rangers
Artemi Panarin - Vincent Trocheck - Brennan Othmann
Alexis Lafreniere - J.T. Miller - Jonny Brodzinski
Chris Kreider - Mika Zibanejad - Will Cuylle
Brett Berard - Juuso Parssinen - Matt Rempe
K'Andre Miller - Will Borgen
Carson Soucy - Adam Fox
Zac Jones - Braden Schneider
Igor Shesterkin
Jonathan Quick
Los Angeles Kings
Andrei Kuzmenko - Anze Kopitar - Adrian Kempe
Kevin Fiala - Quinton Byfield - Alex Laferriere
Warren Foegele - Phillip Danault - Trevor Lewis
Tanner Jeannot - Samuel Helenius - Alex Turcotte
Mikey Anderson - Drew Doughty
Vladislav Gavrikov - Jordan Spence
Joel Edmundson - Brandt Clarke
Darcy Kuemper
David Rittich
Puck Drop
It'll be a 10:30 p.m. puck drop from Crypto.com Arena as the Rangers look for solace in the standings. If they can become just the eighth team this season to take both points out of Los Angeles, they can get off on the right foot for this road trip and get into the swing of things regarding their playoff push. Losing in regulation is expected, but it would be incredibly damaging for the Blueshirts.