Thursday Night hockey in the land of the Gateway Arch and Blues music as the Rangers make their third stop of the road trip for a rematch against the St. Louis Blues. The teams last played almost exactly a week ago when the Rangers came back after the Blues scored three goals in a quick spurt in the second period. St. Louis has not won a game since then, while the Rangers have gone 2-1. The Blues will certainly be hungry for a win to get themselves out of their slump while the Rangers will look to bounce back from their disappointing effort in Minnesota on Tuesday Night.
As if things haven’t been tough enough for the Blues in the last week, it appears they will be without the services of former Rangers forward Pavel Buchnevich. Buch took a questionable hit from Sens forward Austin Watson Tuesday Night in Ottawa and entered concussion protocol. With that in mind, St. Louis will likely look to David Perron to continue with his recent success as he has four goals in his last five. While the Blues may have struggled in the past week, they still have a winning record in their last ten at 5-3-2.
On the Rangers end it’s been much of the same. While they aren’t riding a losing streak, they are 6-3-1 in their last ten. They’re coming off a disappointing loss to the Minnesota Wild and have a tendency to bounce back in games after not playing well. It would be interesting to see the majority of this game played at 5-v-5, as both teams rely heavily on special teams. For the Rangers, expect the same lineup barring a decision to get Morgan Barron back in the action:
Kreider - Zibanejad - Lafreniere
Panarin - Strome - Hunt
Goodrow - Chytil - Gauthier
Gettinger - Brodzinski - Reaves
Lindgren - Fox
Miller - Trouba
Nemeth - Schneider
Expect Igor Shesterkin to get back in net after taking the night off in Minnesota and any night that Igor plays, you can expect the Rangers have a good chance at getting the win. On the opposite end, I’d say it’s a bit of a coin toss as to who gets the start. Jordan Binnington played in Ottawa on Tuesday Night and he and Husso split the back to backs over the weekend. Villie Husso got the nod in the last game against the Rangers so while Husso may be the better goalie this season, they may ride Binnington just to get a different look against a team they already lost to this season.
As far as the lines for the Rangers that got shuffled up a bit in Minnesota, there isn’t reason to worry about Lafreniere not being on that top line. Gerard Gallant tends to put Reaves on one of the top lines when things are hitting the fan and he’s for lack of a better word, desperate to turn things around. Alexis Lafreniere has played some of his best hockey in this recent stretch and look for him to have an impact in tonight’s action. For Dryden Hunt, Julien Gauthier, Filip Chytil, this is truly the time for them to show this organization what they can do. As we slowly and steadily approach the trade deadline, their window for maintaining the kind of ice time they get is quietly closing.
All in all, Rangers fans have to hope that tonight will be a better outing than Tuesday and the Rangers will have to put a lot of stake in bouncing back from that game if they want to extend St. Louis’ losing streak. It’s a tough stretch of the season with the trade deadline looming in a division that hasn’t had much change in the standings. Nevertheless, the Rangers want to keep the wins coming and have a good a chance as any to do that tonight.
Chris Feldman
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