New York Rangers prepare to for the Columbus Blue Jackets to complete home-and-home
After the Columbus Blue Jackets snapped the New York Rangers ten game winning streak, they will be looking to rebuild against the same opponents. With a change of arena sending the teams back to New York, they will run it back and go again. New York will be looking for two points to send them back to the top of the NHL standings while the Blue Jackets are looking for any positive to take as they close in on the end of their season.
There are very few games left before the trade deadline, so this is the time of year where Chris Drury and the Rangers management group have to evaluate the team on the ice and decide whether or not it is worth upgrading, who would be the best upgrade at a position, and whether the price fits. Getting this team to play well before the deadline to give management a true idea of the biggest needs with the limited cap space available.
Matt Rempe will be playing again, and he's managed a fight in every single game he's played in so far. He will probably be looking to keep that going, despite the worries of the fans and medical staff on the team. He's got quite the shiner from his last fight against Mathieu Olivier, but the Canadian youngster isn't going to care about that moving forward. He'll be throwing punches left and right.
Projected Lineups
Columbus Blue Jackets
Johnny Gaudreau - Boone Jenner - Jack Roslovic
Yegor Chinakhov - Dmitri Voronkov - Kirill Marchenko
Kent Johnson - Cole Sillinger - Alexander Nylander
Justin Danforth - Sean Kuraly - Mathieu Olivier
Zach Werenski - Adam Boqvist
Ivan Provorov - Damon Severson
Jake Bean - Erik Gudbranson
Elvis Merzlikins
Daniil Tarasov
New York Rangers
Chris Kreider - Mika Zibanejad - Kaapo Kakko
Artemi Panarin - Vincent Trocheck - Alexis Lafreniere
Will Cuylle - Jonny Brodzinski - Jimmy Vesey
Adam Edstrom - Barclay Goodrow - Matt Rempe
Ryan Lindgren - Adam Fox
K'Andre Miller - Jacob Trouba
Erik Gustafsson - Braden Schneider
Igor Shesterkin
Jonathan Quick
Puck Drop
When these two teams played in Columbus, the Jackets snapped the Rangers winning streak. A Rangers squad on the second half of a back-to-back with travel were unable to overcome the bottom feeder. Tonight, revenge will be the ideal dish as the team looks for retribution. Getting back to winning ways by beating the team you just lost to will give a large boost to the confidence of some of the young players in the squad.