The Rangers kick off their second back to back of the season tonight with a weekend in Alberta. The Rangers have a big test ahead of them as they will be going up against two very strong opponents that seem to find the net a heck of a lot easier than the Rangers do themselves. The Rangers open the weekend against Conor McDavid and the Edmonton Oilers and will pay special tribute to an alum of both teams. Kevin Lowe, who won a Stanley Cup with the Rangers in 1994, as well as four additional Cups with the Oilers in the 80s, will have his number four retired and raised to the rafters of Rogers Arena. A well deserved honor for a key piece to the Rangers 94 team.
The Rangers need to go into these two games with everything they have. Their previous two efforts against Vancouver and Seattle will not get them very far against the Oilers and Flames, especially with Edmonton. The Oilers lead the league in goals for in games played and on the power play with a 46.4% success rate. On top of that, they’re sixth in the league on the penalty kill, in the face-off dot and seventh in goals against in games played. The Rangers only come close being ninth on the penalty kill and fourth in the goals against category, mostly thanks to Igor Shesterkin.
Edmonton is 8-1-0 to start the season, the odds certainly don’t favor the Rangers, but they’re due for an offensively strong outing and they need that to be tonight. I mentioned earlier this week how Artemi Panarin and Mika Zibanejad both getting goals in the last game was a good sign but needs to be the start of something bigger. They’re both going to have a big responsibility in tonight’s outing as the Rangers will certainly need goals and lots of them. As key of a piece they will be, the Rangers need their defense to be tight as any time and space given to these Oilers forwards will certainly be taken advantage of.
Head Coach Gerard Gallant already made it clear that the goalies will split this weekend's back to back but hasn’t said who gets what game. You have to think and hope they’ll go with Shesterkin tonight and Georgiev tomorrow. It’s pretty much common sense that you want your best goalie against two of the league's top goal scorers in McDavid and Leon Draisitl. On top of that, while the goals weren’t really Shesterkins fault, he did just let in five against the Flames last Monday. Might as well see what Georgiev can do in their second battle with the Flames. As for the lines, it’s pretty uncertain what they’re going to look like.
Alexis Lafreniere was practicing on the fourth line earlier this week which is slightly concerning. While Gallant attests that it’s not him trying to send a message, you have to think he’s trying to get something more out of Alexis. With Reaves still recovering, you have to imagine it’s either Gauthier or McKegg who stays out of the lineup as a healthy scratch. If Gallant does indeed look to keep Laffy on the fourth line for tonight’s game, my guess would be the following:
Kreider - Zibanejad - Goodrow
Panarin - Strome - Kakko
Hunt - Chytil - Blias
Lafreniere - Rooney - Gauthier/McKegg
On the back end, expect the same pairs we’ve seen lately in Lindgren/Fox, Miller/Trouba, and Nemeth/Tinordi. I’d imagine they bring Lundkvist back into the mix at some point during this back to back but wouldn’t be surprised if it’s the back half of it, against a team he’s already familiar with. I also can’t imagine Gallant plans to keep Nils out of the lineup much longer and if he does, he needs to be assigned to Hartford so he can continue to develop. He’s not gaining anything from watching from the press box, either use him or use him in Hartford.
If the Rangers plan to hold this high stature in the standings, they have to keep the wins coming and come out on top against at least one, if not both of these games. This weekend will be a true test on what kind of team New York is and all the cards will be on the table. If the goal score continues to be a problem, there’s moves that can be made that Chris Drury will want to start thinking about exploring. The hope has to be that the Rangers have settled into the Western Canada time zone and are ready to play their best hockey this weekend.
Chris Feldman
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