The New York Rangers will ride hot into Ontario, Canada as they take on the Toronto Maple Leafs in the Scotiabank Arena. This will prove to be a huge test for the Rangers as the Leafs are 10-5-1, having really turned it up after losing their first four games of the season, including their overtime loss in New York to begin the year. Similar to the Rangers, the Leafs have also won four of their last four and will be looking to extend their win streak, making for what should be a real good hockey game.
The Leafs rank top six in the league in a lot of categories including power play, penalty kill, face-offs and goals against. Similarly to the Rangers, they struggle to score goals as they rank 23rd in goals for, just three spots behind New York. This has the potential to be another low scoring game, similar to the first time these two teams played each other this season. That being said, there’s a pretty good chance it ends up being a high scoring game as that’s just how things work for both these teams. Going into it, I’m calling it a 5-4 game.
The Leafs have been able to get their key guys going which has granted them their success following the first four games. Auston Matthews has six points in the last five for the Leafs, who have also gotten second hand scoring from guys like Ondrej Kase, who has three in his last five. The Rangers are also getting the production they need from their guys as Kakko and Panarin have found several goals, Kreider continues to ride his hot streak, and Julien Gauthier stepped up in the absence of Sammy Blais, finding the back of the net in the last game against Montreal.
With Jack Campbell posting a shutout in yesterday's game against Nashville, it’s likely the Leafs will go with rookie Joseph Woll in net tonight, unless they want to give Campbell the chance to continue his shutout streak. Either way, the Rangers are going to want to pepper Toronto’s net with as many shots as they can in attempts to crack the score early. Igor Shesterkin will once again be trusted with holding down the fort for the Rangers and will have to play to his usual strength to keep the goals from coming, one way or another it’s bound to be a close game.
Expect the same line up from the Rangers:
Kreider - Zibanejad - Goodrow
Panarin - Strome - Kakko
Lafreniere - Chytil - Gauthier
Hunt - Rooney - Reaves
Lindgren - Fox
Miller - Trouba
Nemeth - Lundkvist
Barring any trades, injuries or call ups, I’d expect this to be the standard, day in and day out line up for the foreseeable future. If Gauthier or Lafreniere continue to play well and have a potential increase in production, there’s a chance they’ll get a crack on that top line. Although, if Lafreniere, Chytil and Gauthier continue to click and find chemistry, I don’t see any changes happening. Head Coach Gerard Gallant has spoken about having balance up and down the line up and not having to rely on a top line or anything like that. With that in mind, it’s likely Lafreniere will hunker down on the third line for a while, giving the team that sort of balance.
This would’ve been the start of three games in four days for the Rangers, but with the Senators games being postponed, the Rangers will have two days between their next game when they play Buffalo back at home on Sunday. If the Rangers continue playing the way they’ve been building towards, there’s no reason they can’t end the weekend with two wins and continue to prove they belong where they sit in the standings.
Chris Feldman
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