Happy NYR Game Day Rangers fans! A happy one it is, as this will be the first home game the blueshirts have fans in attendance for in almost a year. While the Garden will be at a very limited capacity, this will still be a huge morale boost for this young Rangers team, especially for hometown guys like Adam Fox and Anthony Bitetto. Fox already mentioned after practice yesterday the excitement building up for this and how he will have some of his family in attendance.
Another reason for Rangers fans to have hope after a tough loss in Philadelphia Wednesday night is Filip Chytil being a full participant in yesterday's practice. The young Czech center's presence has certainly been missed and while he is still considered day-to-day and is probably a no go for tonight's battle with the Bruins, it is still a huge relief knowing he is on the brink of returning. Unfortunately, Miller and Kakko also remain day-to-day as part of Covid-19 protocol and Jacob Trouba remains out for the foreseeable future with a broken thumb. Not many updates on the Panarin situation other than David Quinn feeling confident his name will be cleared soon.
As for tonight's match up, the Bruins are coming off a blowout loss against the Islanders last night 7-2. Despite all our missing pieces, it definitely helps that the Bruins just played and the return of fans to the Garden could be the spark we need to come out strong against one of the teams sitting high in the standings. Jaroslav Halak played last night so expect Tuukka Rask getting the start against Alexandar Georgiev tonight who played strongly against the B's in his prior start against them earlier this month.
As for the Rangers lineup, expect the same as the previous game barring a Filip Chytil return. On the off chance he does, my best guess of what the lines will look like is:
Lafreniere - Zibanejad - Buchnevich
Kreider - Strome - Blackwell
Lemieux - Chytil - Howden
Di Giuseppe - Rooney - Gauthier
However, expect Gauthier to stay on the third line with Lemieux between Howden and Rooney, PDG with Brodzinski as Chytil most likely won't be ready to go tonight. Rangers need to tighten up defensively against this offensively strong Bruins team. Expect Adam Fox and Ryan Lindgren to be on the ice every time Pastrnak and his line mates are out there. Look for Buchnevich, who always seems to play with a chip on his shoulder against this pesky bunch to have himself a night. The blueshirts need to avoid the start they got off to Wednesday and get pucks to the net early and often. The best way for them to get pucks past Tuukka is to throw everything they can to the net and to establish a strong net front presence. Guys like Lemieux and Gauthier need to step up in that regard and take a page out of Kreider's playbook from his three goal night against Philly.
Chris Feldman
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