New York Rangers get first look at Connor Bedard as Chicago Blackhawks come to MSG
By Conor Power
The Chicago Blackhawks are currently sat towards the bottom of the NHL standings, and they will be the team providing the opposition tonight for New York Rangers. It'll be the Blueshirts looking to try and get back into the win column after the Carolina Hurricanes came into broadway and smacked the Rangers 6-1. Can the Blueshirts respond tonight as they get a Blackhawks team that has far less to offer than the Hurricanes do?
This will be the first look the New York Rangers get at Connor Bedard on Broadway. A generational talent, the Chicago Blackhawks won the right to draft the next dominant force in the NHL when they won the draft lottery last season. Bedard fell into their hands, and he's been the only Chicago forward worth watching this season. He's incredibly dangerous, but he's isolated. Keep him quite and this Hawks team tends to go quietly.
We may be getting a debut tonight for the Blueshirts, and a long-awaited one at that. Brennan Othmann was enjoying his first professional season in the AHL with the Hartford Wolf Pack, but the Rangers have called up their first round pick from 2021, and he is expected to go tonight since Tyler Pitlick is dealing with a lower body issue. Pitlick will join Kakko and Chytil on the injury report.
Former New York Ranger Jarred Tinordi will be making a return to the garden, as will former Ranger forward Colin Blackwell. Hopefully, they will be kept off the scoreboard and the Rangers can run away with two points. This is a very injured Chicago roster, and they were not great at the beginning of the season when they were healthy. This has to be turned into a win for the Rangers, anything else is unacceptable.
Projected Lineups
Chicago Blackhawks
Ryan Donatio - Connor Bedard - Philipp Kurashev
Nick Foligno - Jason Dickinson - Colin Blackwell
Lukas Reichel - MacKenzie Entwistle - Cole Guttman
Boris Katchouk - Brett Seney - Reese Johnson
Jarred Tinordi - Connor Murphy
Alex Vlasic - Jaycob Megna
Kevin Korchinski - Nikita Zaitsev
Petr Mrazek
Arvid Soderblom
New York Rangers
Chris Kreider - Mika Zibanejad - Blake Wheeler
Artemi Panarin - Vincent Trocheck - Alexis Lafreniere
Brennan Othmann - WillNick Bonino - Jonny Brodzinski
Will Cuylle - Barclay Goodrow - Jimmy Vesey
Ryan Lindgren - Adam Fox
K'Andre Miller - Jacob Trouba
Erik Gustafsson - Braden Schneider
Igor Shesterkin
Jonathan Quick
Puck Drop
This is a 7 p.m puck drop from Madison Square Garden. With the Rangers looking to try and get back into the win column, they could not have asked for a much more favorable matchup. Getting thumped by Carolina needs to be the bottom of the barrel for this Rangers roster. This will have to be the case for New York, with this team needing to figure out their problems before they start to loose their lead in the Metropolitan Division.