The Rangers will have an immediate chance at redemption following Tuesday Night’s loss as they’re right back at it with the Hurricanes, this time in Carolina. The Blueshirts are now 2-1 on the season against the Hurricanes and will look to get back in the wins column after dropping their first regulation loss in seven games. With the loss Tuesday, the Rangers chances at climbing that standings enough to put pressure on Carolina in first place take a hit but a win tonight would put them within six points. Having played so recently, the Rangers should know what they’ll have to do tonight in order to adapt to Carolina’s style of play as well as matching up with them on special teams.
Head Coach Gerard Gallant took the loss as an opportunity to once again, shake up lines, this time with the power play units. The top unit now lines up as Zibanejad - Kreider - Panarin - Fox and Kane with the second unit having Tarasenko - Trocheck - Chytil - Lafreniere - Trouba. As for the rest of the lines, everything looked the same in practice. Some fans weren’t thrilled with Gallant’s readiness to change up the power play yet again but honestly, I don’t mind it. The Rangers could not get anything done on their power play chances on Tuesday therefore, they needed to do something. Hopefully the new units can get some magic going and operate more of an aggressive power play to compete with Carolina’s like minded penalty killers.
With that in mind, you can expect the same line combinations:
Panarin - Zibanejad - Tarasenko
Kreider - Trocheck - Kane
Lafreniere - Chytil - Kakko
Vesey - Goodrow - Motte
Lindgren - Fox
Miller - Trouba
Mikkola - Schneider
Both Tyler Motte and Ryan Lindgren, who were banged up in the last game against Carolina, had maintenance days during yesterday’s practice. There wasn’t much else reported on them but the assumption is that they should both be good to go for puck drop. They have Ben Harpur if one of the two aren’t fully good to go but aside from that, they would have to play short handed if they weren’t comfortable playing either of them. Hopefully they are just banged up and especially with Lindgren, it’s nothing major or recurring.
Tonight marks game one of a two game road trip as the Rangers will head to Sunrise, FL following tonight's game for a meeting with the Panthers on Saturday. It’ll be interesting to see how Benoit Allaire and the Rangers coaching staff decide to handle goal tending splits for the remainder of the season. The Rangers have eleven games remaining with two more back to back stretches. Igor Shesterkin currently has 51 games played on the year, meaning he’s on pace for at least 55-60 starts. You have to think seeding plays a big factor in that. If there’s any chance of the Rangers catching New Jersey and Carolina, they’ll ride Igor as much as they can but if all signs point to New York being locked in at third, there’s no sense in overworking Igor.
All that being said, I’d expect Igor again tonight as well as Saturday. If it were up to me, I’d give Halak Columbus, go back to Igor for New Jersey then Halak again for Buffalo. Give Igor the Sunday game in Washington, the first half of the last back to back against Tampa then at most, one or two of the final games of the season. While I’m sure Shesterkin will want to keep playing if he stays hot, the Rangers will definitely need to keep this in mind the closer we get to the end of the season. Tonight will be a bit of a milestone in itself as the Rangers will only have ten games left after it. As far as meaningful regular season games go, there’s only a handful remaining which should be all the motivation needed to get a big pair of points on the road tonight.
Chris Feldman
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