As the New York Rangers continue their tour of the Western Conference, their travels take them to British Columbia, where the Vancouver Canucks await the Blueshirts. While Vancouver is a scary opponent on paper, they are 3-4-3 at home this season and exploitable in their barn. The New York Rangers can continue to make the Canucks lives harder tonight with a win in BC. Can the Rangers continue this successful road trip to the North West?
The big news coming out of Vancouver right now is that former New York Ranger and Canucks star J.T Miller will be taking an indefinite leave of absence. He's been a critical part of the Canucks resurgence in recent seasons, and his absence will be a big miss for the organization. New York cannot let the Canucks off without their star center, instead needing to pile salt into the wounds by inflicting another defeat onto the franchise tonight.
For New York, Jonathan Quick's heroics in Seattle will probably mean a return to the crease for Igor Shesterkin. Igor's still the Rangers' number one despite the back-to-back shutouts for Quick. In Vancouver, the Russian shot-stopper will be tasked with shutting down the likes of Elias Pettersson and Quinn Hughes as the two teams collide. Can the Rangers take advantage of the absentees the Canucks have and claim the two points?
Projected Lineups
New York Rangers
Chris Kreider - Mika Zibanejad - Reilly Smith
Artemi Panarin - Vincent Trocheck - Alexis Lafreniere
Will Cuylle - Jonny Brodzinski - Kaapo Kakko
Adam Edstrom - Sam Carrick - Jimmy Vesey
K'Andre Miller - Adam Fox
Ryan Lindgren - Jacob Trouba
Zac Jones - Braden Schneider
Igor Shesterkin
Jonathan Quick
Vancouver Canucks
Jake DeBrusk - Elias Pettersson - Kiefer Sherwood
Dakota Joshua - Pius Suter - Conor Garland
Danton Heinen - Teddy Bleuger - Jonathan Lekkerimaki
Arshdeep Bains - Aatu Raty - Nils Hoglander
Quinn Hughes - Filip Hronek
Carson Soucy - Tyler Myers
Erik Brannstrom - Noah Juulsen
Kevin Lankinen
Arturs Silovs
Puck Drop
The puck drops from BC at 10 p.m., and the Rangers look to continue building momentum on this road trip. New York will try to make it two wins from two with the news that Filip Chytil will rejoin the squad when they arrive in Calgary. Getting there on a high would make it much easier to ease Chytil back into the lineup after his injury, so a win tonight would be considerable.