The Rangers are on the road again as they head across the border to take on the Ottawa Senators in hopes of snapping this nasty losing streak. With each passing loss, this team is becoming more and more due for a win streak and after the handful of disappointing showings they’ve had, there is no better time than now. The team has a relatively balanced schedule throughout the month of December with only one back to back this weekend. Aside from Vegas, Colorado and Toronto, these are all extremely winnable games for the Rangers who absolutely need to find success this month if they want to turn this thing around. They have a great opportunity to get it started in Ottawa tonight and have to set the tone early.
On Ottawa’s end, this is a team that had a lot of hype going into the season but continues to find themselves on the ugly side of a rebuild. Not many general managers had a better offseason then Pierre Dorion who fleeced Alex DeBrincat out of Chicago, signed Claude Giroux and brought in Cam Talbot to tend the net. Those were three big moves that showed signs that Ottawa was ready to move out of the rebuild and start competing but alas, it hasn’t played out that way just yet. The Sens are 8-12-1 on the season, currently sitting second to last in the Eastern Conference. Throughout their last ten, they’ve gone 4-5-1 with a pair of big wins against the Ducks and Kings to wrap up their West Coast road trip. As they return home, they will look to build on their own streak of wins, which they haven’t seen since they started the season with four home wins in a row.
While Ottawa is a team that hasn’t done very well this year, they do have a lot of weapons in their lineup and are the kind of team that is capable of flipping the switch at any point this season. Just by looking at their results so far this season, you can tell they’re a streaky team. Given the fact that they are coming off a pair of wins, they’re going to be hungry for that third one therefore the Rangers can not underestimate them. Not that they are really in a position to be underestimating teams anyway. Ottawa does well in face-offs and its tenth in the league on the power play, two areas the Rangers have seemed to have lost their way in since the start of the season. On the flipside, their penalty kill isn’t great so the Rangers have to take advantage when given opportunities on the power play.
Ottawa is led by their captain Brady Tkatchuk as well as their own young star in Tim Stutzle, who goes into this game hot with two goals and three assists in the teams last five. Tkatchuk plays a hard nosed game and has the skill to be a difference maker, as does the veteran Claude Giroux who completes that top line. The threats continue with DeBrincat and Shane Pinto on the second line who has been off to a great start this season, stepping up in the absence of Josh Norris who has been out for a while with a shoulder injury. The Rangers will be reunited against Tyler Motte who spent the post deadline part of the season with the Blueshirts and for a while, was hoped to return to the team despite inevitably not having the cap space to re-sign.
On the Rangers side of things, we finally saw some changes to the line combinations come from the Rangers skate before boarding the plane to Ottawa. Fox and Trocheck were given maintenance days once again but will be good to go tonight. The biggest news from the line changes comes in the form of Vitaly Kravtsov finally rejoining the mix as it appears he will make his return to the lineup tonight, leaving Ryan Carpenter a healthy scratch. The other notable change comes in the D-Pairs, where Jacob Trouba (as I suggested yesterday) has been moved to the third pair with Zac Jones. With that in mind, we should expect to see the following for tonight’s outing:
Kreider - Zibanejad - Vesey
Panarin - Chytil - Kakko
Lafreniere - Trocheck - Kravtsov
Blais - Goodrow - Gauthier
Lindgren - Fox
Miller - Schneider
Jones - Trouba
More on the Trouba saga as head coach Gerard Gallant was asked about his injury and whether or not he’d consider giving him a game or two off to fully heal. Essentially, Gallant had said that obviously you can’t do certain things as well as you normally could when dealing with an injury but he wouldn’t consider giving him a game off as “he [Trouba] wouldn’t allow that.” It’s incredibly difficult to comprehend the logic behind that theory as it shouldn’t be Trouba’s decision to play or not. If he has an injury that is indeed keeping him from playing at 100% (when at this rate, he hasn’t even looked 50%) there is no reason he should be forcing himself through it. If it was April, maybe even March, I could understand it, but it’s NOVEMBER. There is so much hockey left and with the way things are looking, there may not even be an April if this team can’t figure things out.
Regardless of whether that situation is being handled the way it should, it is a bit relieving to see that they have at least moved him down the line-up, giving Braden Schneider a chance to perform in a bigger role. Schneider, would’ve had three games in a row with a goal had his goal not been disallowed against Edmonton but nevertheless, he has been playing well as of late and certainly deserves more ice time than Trouba does right now. The other big headline to come from Rangers practice the other day is the apparent frustration that Igor Shesterkin is currently dealing with. I’m unsure if this intense form of frustration is a good thing in the sense that it’s part of what makes him so competitive of if we need to actually be concerned with his mental health and how it is affecting his performance.
Following the Rangers' loss on Monday night, Shesterkin said in the post game that “The goalie [meaning himself] played a shit game again… I’m ashamed.” The frustration seemed to continue into practice where Rangers beat writer Vince Mercogliano tweeted that Julien Gauthier roofed a shot past Shesterkin which resulted in Igor slamming his stick over the crossbar. That’s the part of his frustration that makes me wonder if he’s being too hard on himself or if it’s just what makes him so competitive. Regardless, Shesterkin isn’t the problem with this team and despite what he thinks, is putting his team in a position to win night in and night out. Gallant doesn’t typically name his starters publically, so 8/9 out of 10 times, we can assume Igor is going to be the starter unless we’re told otherwise.
That being said, it’s safe to assume Shesterkin will get the chance to bounce back tonight but honestly, I wouldn’t be all that surprised if Jaro Halak saw the net tonight. For as much pressure Igor is putting on himself, Halak is equally as determined to get his first win as a Ranger and if Shesterkin is visibly frustrated, a night off couldn’t hurt. While it’s become quite taboo for goalies to play in back to back games, if they were to start Halak tonight, they could give Igor the weekend’s back to back in attempts to get him in a strong rhythm. Just some food for thought but regardless of who’s in net, the Rangers need to show up for their goalie and have a strong showing. The importance of these games continues to grow the more the team struggles but at the end of the day, this is a highly skilled team that you have to believe is more than capable of being okay once they can get out of this lingering funk.
Chris Feldman
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