The freshly vaccinated New York Rangers are back at it tonight at the Garden against the Pittsburgh Penguins, the last meeting between these two teams of this regular season. Both teams are coming off the Rangers 8-4 win on Tuesday night, expect the Penguins to come out hard, looking to reassert their success over the Rangers. As for the Rangers, I hate to say it, but don't expect the best of showings. Here's why.
The entire Rangers staff and organization received their COVID-19 vaccinations yesterday which is good news in the sense they are doing their job in protecting themselves and others from this terrible virus. The bad news however is pretty much everyone who has gotten any of the available vaccines has suffered side effects and or hasn't felt 100% the next day or two after receiving it. Sure these guys are professional athletes in great shape so perhaps it won't effect them as much as they everyday guy but I wouldn't be surprised if they're a little sluggish and struggle to keep up with the Penguins.
That being said, because of the team field trip to get vaccinated, they did not skate yesterday so it is unsure if any line changes or anything should be expected. The Rangers establishing an early lead against Pittsburgh was great, especially for the fact that it resulted in David Quinn to experiment with some lines, including moving Kravtsov up to the line with Panarin and Strome. The best guess for changes in lines, if any would be for Quinn to return Gauthier to the line up, in place of Phil Di Giuseppe but again, very unclear if they are going to be looking at changing anything up. I would expect Igor Sheshterkin to once again get the nod in net tonight and we could look to see Georgiev against the Islanders tomorrow, especially since he has a strong track record against them.
So again, look for:
Kreider - Zibanejad - Buchnevich
Panarin - Strome - Blackwell
Lafreniere - Chytil - Kakko
Di Giuseppe - Rooney - Kravtsov
Lindgren - Fox
Miller - Trouba
Hajek - Smith
There's nothing wrong with a little reflection, and while it's unrelated to tonight's game, today's a good chance to do some reflecting. A little over three years ago, the Rangers sent a letter to their fans, declaring that the time for an official rebuild was now, that some decisions would be made that would be difficult, leaving fans upset, but rest assured, it was all for the best. Three years ago to date, Matt Calamia tweeted the Rangers updated lines for the day:
Kreider - Zibanejad - Chytil
Vesey - Andersson - Zuccarello
Spooner - Hayes - Fogarty
Beleskey - Namestnikov - Buchnevich
Staal - Pionk
Skjei - Sproul
Gilmour - O'Gara
Lundqvist
This season has without a doubt been one of the more unusual ones and has certainly been a roller coaster and with just about a month remaining, I'm sure I'm not the only fan not completely happy with where the team is as far as the standings go. Although just look at those lines from three years ago.. Look at what those players turned into. Ryan Spooner turned into Ryan Strome, Neal Pionk turned into Jacob Trouba, A lot of those players turned into draft picks that played a part in building this team to where it's at today. You can't look at this young team and the incredible depth of prospects we have and not be incredibly excited.
I was born just two years after the Rangers last won the cup so I have literally been waiting my whole life for this team to win again. Looking at this organization and thinking about what were going to look like in the next couple seasons, I wouldn't change a damn thing. As I've been saying, it's not John Davidson and the rest of managements goal to win a Stanley Cup, it's to win multiple and with this team we've built in THREE YEARS?! It's looking pretty damn promising to accomplish that goal.
Anyway, back to today, the Rangers are currently the team sitting closest to the Bruins for that last playoff spot, just barely being above the Flyers. This team needs to keep winning and keep hoping the Bruins lose games. This Penguins team is very good, we've known that all season and saw it again Tuesday, but we did put up eight goals on them and while it will be challenging just coming off of a day off and getting vaccinated, the team is going to have to bear down and give it their best effort. It'll definitely be a character game tonight and whatever goes down, just be glad Ryan Sproul, Rob O'Gara and John Gilmour don't make up half of our D pairings anymore.
Chris Feldman
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