It’s Rangers game day and a bit of a reunion night as the Blueshirts take on the Anaheim Ducks in the first of a four game homestand. Anaheim is now home to Ryan Strome, who spent the better portion of his career with the Rangers and Frank Vatrano who was an integral part to the Rangers recent playoff run, both signing longer term deals with the Ducks in the off-season. In addition to the former Rangers, John Klingberg has also signed a one year “prove yourself” kind of deal in Anaheim, strengthening their group of defenders, adding to the teams overall depth.
While the Ducks aren’t a team that’s ready to compete just yet, they are coming towards the end of their rebuild and certainly have some talented pieces. Trevor Zegras, Jamie Drysdale and Mason MacTavish are among some of the big names that give Ducks fans reasons to be excited about the future. The team is 1-1 through their first two on the year, most recently getting blown out by the New York Islanders 7-1 in game one of their East Coast road trip. Tonight will be the first half of a back to back for the Ducks as they will take on the Devils in Newark tomorrow before heading to Boston later in the week. It’s never easy getting wins on a long road trip, especially in such an early stretch of the season. With that in mind, you have to believe the Ducks will look at tonight’s game as a must win, as night one of a back to back will always be easier on the body.
The Rangers know that feeling all too well, as they are also coming off a back to back stretch, where they dropped their first game of the year in a 4-1 loss to the Winnipeg Jets. It wasn’t a bad showing by any means, they just ran into a hot goalie in Connor Hellebuyck and a team that had all the emotion and energy of playing their first game of the season. It was the definition of the game that humbles the fans and reminds you that no team is going to go 82-0. It’s hard to really blame the Rangers for the loss but the expectation to rebound hard tonight will certainly be put into place.
Based on what we saw from yesterday’s practice updates, it looks like Ryan Carpenter will join Vitaly Kravtsov in the day-to-day category, likely not playing tonight. On the bright side, Sammy Blais who has missed the first three games of the regular season with an injury, looks like he will be ready to rejoin the lineup for tonight’s outing. Assuming that’s the case with those three players, we should be looking at the following lineup:
Kreider - Zibanejad - Kakko
Panarin - Trocheck - Lafreniere
Vesey - Chytil - Blais
Hunt - Goodrow - Reaves
Lindgren - Fox
Miller - Trouba
Jones - Schneider
Zac Jones, who was a healthy scratch in Winnipeg replaced by Libor Hajek, was taking power play reps during yesterday’s practice so you have to think that Gerard Gallant will get him back in the mix tonight. That being said, Libor Hajek did look pretty good for the majority of the night on Friday. It seems that Gallant wants to try to avoid having him sit in the press box for extended amounts of time, like he did for most of last season. Hajek’s tenure with the Rangers has certainly been interesting and part of why so many fans don’t understand why he continues to make the team. He has seen very little ice time over the last couple seasons but according to the coaching staff, continues to do the right things off the ice, never complaining. It’s the right move to go into the new season with the idea of keeping him fresh in mind, and trying to get him in at least one of every ten games works in everyone's best interest. Especially on road trips and back to backs, there shouldn’t be any problem with having a guy sit to keep everyone fresh throughout the long season.
For similar reasons, we saw Jaroslav Halak make his Rangers debut in Winnipeg where he had a pretty great showing. When you have a goalie like Igor Shesterkin on your team, all you really need from your backup is to play strong enough to keep the team in a position to win and that’s exactly what Jaro did. Up until the end of the third period, the game was right there for the Rangers taking, they just ran out of gas and eventually time as Winnipeg had the momentum to put the game away in the end. Nothing wrong with how Halak played and even if he was stellar, it’s very hard to win the game when you only score once.
With a refreshed group and Igor in net, the Rangers are going to look to get back to the dominant style of play they established in the first two games of the season. Through their first two games, the Ducks have allowed 12 goals making this a good opportunity for the Rangers to have another stat night to keep the goals coming. Look for a ton of energy and a strong start as the Rangers should be just as hungry for a win as the Ducks will be.
Chris Feldman
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