The Rangers and Islanders will wrap up their meetings with each other for this season with one last battle on Long Island. The Islanders are coming off a dominate 3-0 win that demoralized the Rangers hopes of squeezing into a playoff spot which should result in the Rangers shifting gears back to the original plan, preparing for the future aka, next season. Let the kids ride out the final stretch of games, get some of the guys who haven't been in the line up back in there and trust the process.
Lots of news coming from the Rangers skate yesterday including the announcement that Brett Howden will miss the rest of the season with a fractured foot. I have to say, this guys gotten flack all year for his lack of productivity, but he was one of the few players who looked like they actually wanted to play on Thursday and it showed in him sacrificing his body and the rest of his season apparently to block shots. In addition to his injury update, Chris Kreider, Jacob Trouba and now Ryan Lindgren are all listed as day-to-day. Lindgren suffered a tough break when after delivering a hit, crashing into where the glass starts at the end of the bench, always a tough play to watch.
With all the injuries and the shift in focus of how the rest of the season should go, the Rangers utilized two of their four remaining call ups on Morgan Barron and Tarmo Reunanen. In 21 games with the Wolf Pack this season, Morgan Barron has scored 10 goals with 11 assists, a point a game average. Not bad at all for the rookie, who was easily one of Hartford's best players and one of the last cuts for the Rangers back at the end of the shortened training camp. As for Tarmo Reunanen, in 21 games with the Pack he netted four goals with 13 assists for 17 points. Yet another promising defenseman for this organization, Tarmo was called up earlier and got an assist in his first and so far only NHL game.
It will certainly be exciting as these two are expected to be in the line up tonight, marking Barron's NHL debut and Tarmo's second career game. This is what we should see more of in the final stretch here. It is uncertain what Chris Kreider's situation is and we don't know for sure the timetables on returns for Trouba or Lindgren. One thing that has been mentioned prior is the effect the shortened/hybrid season has had on veteran players. It might be in the Rangers best interest to just rest these guys down the stretch and use a couple more call ups to give a better look to some guys.
Assuming all three of Trouba, Lindgren and Kreider are a no go for tonight's game, the lines should be as they were in practice:
Lafreniere - Zibanejad - Buchnevich
Panarin - Strome - Kravtsov
Blackwell - Chytil - Kakko
Barron - Rooney - Gauthier
Hajek - Fox
Miller - Jones
Reunanen - Smith
Alexander Georgiev will start in goal.
Obviously, we all hope the guys with injuries are okay but let's hope that this is the line up we see tonight. With the playoff dream over, there is no sense in rushing these guys back to action or pushing them to finish out the year. Like I said, give your veteran guys a rest, Kreider, Trouba, Lindgren, Blackwell, Rooney. Use all of your call ups, give Ty Ronning a well deserved look, let Mason Geertsen come up and just beat the crap out of the Islanders. Plenty of options to use this time as an end of season camp sort of look.
Laf - Mika - Buch Bread - Mika - Gauthier
Bread - Strome - Kravtsov Laf - Chytil - Kakko
Kakko - Chytil - Gauthier Kravtsov - Strome - Buch
PDG - Barron - Ronning Geertsen - Barron - Ronning
Just have some fun, experiment with lines, give different guys looks in different situations, this is what the end of the season is for when playoffs aren't going to happen. Including tonight, the Rangers have five games left this season so by "resting" the injured guys, I don't mean completely keeping them out of the action, if they're 100% and want to get back in it, work them in but don't feel the need to rush Kreider back to action just to take ice away from Gauthier. Same goes for Blackwell and Rooney, both have exceeded expectations this season however, we've see what we need to see, now let's see how Ronning handles NHL play, let's see if Geertsen can be a fourth like grinder/enforcer guy.
Nevertheless, despite missing the playoffs these final games should be fun to watch. With all these kids continuing to develop and get looks, you can't help but appreciate how good of a job this organization has done with the rebuild. Sure, it's really hard to be patient with it. Trust me, it's painful when all you want is for this team to win a cup, but we're on the right track and the future not only looks so bright, but is really darn close. So sit back, relax and enjoy the process.
Chris Feldman
Comments