The Rangers are on the road for the first time this season as tonight, they will take on the Minnesota Wild for their regular season opening night on home ice. The Minnesota Wild were a tough first round exit to the St. Louis Blues in the Western Conference Quarterfinals last season and for the most part, have a pretty similar team as last year. One of the biggest changes for the Wild comes in the loss of Kevin Fiala, who they were essentially forced to trade due to limited cap space. Rangers fans can relate, Buchnevich anyone? (Sorry). While aside from that there weren’t many changes, Minnesota’s younger players have more development under their belts and the chemistry of the group has likely strengthened. The Wild are a good team that play a strong, physical game with plenty of skill to back it up.
To the Rangers advantage, the Wild will be without one of their players who plays as hard as anyone in Jordan Greenway. As Rangers fans know all too well, they will have to be extra vigilant against the Wild’s top line as Ryan Hartman compliments the Zuccarello/Kaprizov duo extremely well. While the wild are a good strong team, they aren’t necessarily a deep team so as far as match-ups go, the Rangers should be able to go up against them with a good amount of poise and confidence.
More on the Rangers end, the team announced that Vitaly Kravtsov, who was injured in the first period of the season opener, would not make the trip to Minnesota and Winnipeg this weekend, leaving the Rangers with Sammy Blais as the lone extra forward. Blais on the other hand did skate yesterday and will be going on the trip therefore you have to hope that he will be an option for at least one, if not both of these games. Assuming Blais remains out another game, we’re likely looking at the same line combinations we saw from yesterday’s practice:
Kreider - Zibanejad - Kakko
Panarin - Trochcek - Lafreniere
Vesey - Chytil - Goodrow
Hunt - Carpenter - Reaves
Lindgren - Fox
Miller - Trouba
Jones - Schneider
In the event Blais is available for Friday’s outing, he will likely slot in on the right side of the third line moving Goodrow to the third and Vesey back to the fourth. However, for tonight, Gallant has already said that Hunt will play, indicating that Blais likely isn’t ready just yet. The Rangers will certainly have the advantage in having a game under their belts so it will be imperative that they get to work early, opportunitizing on any opening night jitters the Wild may have. Alexis Lafreniere talked on the importance of a good start after yesterday’s practice, saying the team needs to “get on the forecheck early and try to create some good chances.” They’ll be going up against one of the best goalies to play the game in recent history in Marc-Andre Fleury. With that in mind, if the Rangers can pepper him the way they peppered a prime aged Andrei Vasilevskiy on opening night, they should be in very good shape.
Gallant also spoke about the young third pairing in Zac Jones and Braden Schneider, mentioning how he thought they performed “real well” in the opening game. While it’s still very early, Gallant spoke on his trust in the pairing and kind of joked about Braden Schneider, how he’s almost never mentioned when people refer to the “kids” on the Rangers team and for “good reason.” Gallant continued to say how while Schneider is only 21 years old, he plays the game like a veteran which is pretty evident given how much he was relied on throughout the Rangers playoff run last spring.
It’ll be interesting to see which of the two games we’ll see Jaroslav Halak get his first official start as a New York Ranger in, as it’s almost guaranteed he’ll play one of the back to back games. While you never can tell what Gerard Gallant has in mind, you have to think they will likely save him for Winnipeg who should be less of a threat on Friday Night. That being said, expect to see Igor Shesterkin in between the pipes again tonight in Minnesota. Igor got off to a great start this year, making 26 saves stopping all but one shot that no goalie would really stand a chance on. It will be of great importance not to overuse Shesterkin this season but out of the ten games the team has in the month of October, you can feel pretty comfortable seeing him play in eight of them.
All in all, expect a high intensity game as the Wild will have all the energy and excitement the Rangers had and look to build on from Wednesday. Tonight will be a huge opportunity for Dryden Hunt to fight his way back into the everyday line up conversation and to prove his keep in the big leagues. The Rangers still have their salary cap situation looming in the background of everything and once the entire roster is healthy, it could be Dryden Hunt who draws the short end of the stick. For that reason alone, it’s nights like this where he has to come out like he was shot out of a cannon and make an impact. In addition to Hunt, look for Zibanejad to build off his opening night success in attempts to get a good point streak going early on in the season.
Chris Feldman
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