After a much needed stretch of four days off, the Rangers are back at it in Quebec for an original six matchup with the Montreal Canadiens. With three fourths of the season being in the history books, the Rangers have 19 games remaining to fine tune their chemistry together and gear up for what is hopefully bound to be a long postseason. After tonight’s game in Montreal, the Rangers have a borderline grueling schedule coming up over these next two weeks. They play tonight, then have a back to back (with travel) this weekend where they’ll see Buffalo and Pittsburgh. Following that, they kick off a home stand where they play every other day until next weekend, where they have another back to back, before getting back to playing every other day through next week. As if the schedule alone wasn’t tough enough, in that two week stretch the Rangers play the Penguins three times, the Hurricanes twice and only have one game against a team that isn’t fighting for a playoff spot. So buckle up fans, we got plenty of intense hockey on tap!
The Rangers entered the break on a bit of a rough patch where they lost six of their last eight. Which doesn’t sound great until you consider the fact that five of those games were played significantly short-handed with a growing exhausted group of players. Not to mention all the trade deadline drama and attempts of getting Patrick Kane acquainted in the two games leading to the brief break. Those excuses however, are going to have to be left in the break as it looks like the Rangers should be dressing a full roster for the first time in almost two weeks. While Ryan Lindgren and Tyler Motte are still in the recovery process of bouncing back from injuries, the suspension to K’Andre Miller has ended therefore the Blueshirt’s will have him back in the mix. They also managed to call up Jonny Brodzinski from Hartford, suggesting that the league may have finally granted them an emergency recall.
As far as the injuries go, Tyler Motte was a full participant in yesterday’s practice but was not skating on the fourth line. Ryan Lindgren was also practicing but remained in a non-contact jersey. With that in mind, assuming the Rangers were granted that emergency recall, it looks like we’ll see the following line up tonight:
Kreider - Zibanejad - Tarasenko
Panarin - Trocheck - Kane
Lafreniere - Chytil - Kakko
Vesey - Goodrow - Brodzinski
Miller - Trouba
Mikkola - Fox
Harpur - Schneider
This will be the third and final meeting between the two teams as they last saw each other back in January where they each split a win in a two week span of playing each other. In the last showing, they got goalie’d by Sam Montembault and prior to that, won 4-1. The Canadiens are coming off a shootout loss to Carolina on Tuesday as they are in the midst of a four game home stand. In their last ten, they’ve gone 3-6-1 and are currently on a four game losing streak. They’re firmly battling it out in the basement of the Eastern Conference just two points behind the Flyers and ten ahead of the Blue Jackets. It’s quite clear the Canadiens have had a pretty brutal season, meaning this should be the perfect opportunity for the Rangers to get back on track and start out these busy couple weeks on the right foot. They can’t go into it with the attitude that this should be an easy win considering the Canadiens will probably want to get back on the winning side of things, even if just for the one game.
The big thing for the Rangers will be continuing to build chemistry throughout their top-nine. One of the biggest issues, especially in the game against the Bruins on Saturday was the second line forcing plays that resulted in turnovers. Specifically, between Kane and Panarin. It’s understandable how like the fans, they are probably excited to rekindle the chemistry they had almost a decade ago. However, that can’t be forced, especially when it ends up hurting the team. With the arrival of Kane, Gallant has also opted to have a more spread out power play system:
PP1: Trocheck, Lafreniere, Kane, Panarin, Fox
PP2: Chytil, Zibanejad, Kreider, Trouba, Tarasenko
There’s been a bit of an uproar from Rangers fans over this but honestly, this should hopefully benefit the Rangers man advantage opportunities. They no longer need to rely on the one power play unit to do everything and should look to split power play chances between the two units. If used and executed ideally, there’s a real good chance the Rangers can get back to having a dominant power play, a reputation they’ve sort of struggled to maintain throughout this season. How those top three lines click tonight as well as the new power play units will certainly be something to keep an eye on tonight. As far as goaltending goes, expect to see Shesterkin in net tonight as Halak will likely get Buffalo on Saturday with Igor getting back in net Sunday in Pittsburgh.
With 19 games left on the season, each passing night becomes more and more important for this group to get ready for the playoffs. With how intense and busy these next couple weeks are going to be for the team, the Rangers need to focus on continuing to collect points in the standings but also need to ensure no one is being overworked or playing banged up. Obviously staying healthy isn’t always going to be in their control but any chance the Rangers get to maybe give the kid line more ice time and rest up some of the veterans is an opportunity that needs to be taken. This time next month, the regular season will be nearing its end and the Rangers need to ensure they stay in the top three Metro spots with a healthy line up.
Chris Feldman
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