In quite the defensive showdown, the Rangers fell one short to the Nashville Predators largely thanks to the incredible goaltending of Jusse Saros. Nashville understood the assignment, coming into the Garden playing a physical, defensive game against the Rangers and executed it perfectly. The Rangers didn’t by any means play perfect but there wasn’t too much else they could really do. Georgiev played strong and gave the team more than a fair chance, they just couldn’t find a way to beat Saros on any of their 32 shots.
Nashville came out with a fast paced energy, out-hitting the Rangers early on in the game and as a result, out-shot them 13-6. Neither team's power play could find a goal as they each got one chance at it thanks to hooking penalties from New York’s Filip Chytl and Nashville’s Eeli Tolvanen. There wouldn’t be any penalties in the second period however, Nashville found the back of the net less than two minutes in thanks to a good shot from Philip Tomasino for his fifth of the season. Can’t forget, Tomasino was one of the several players around the league who found their first career goal against the Rangers.
The Rangers certainly picked up the pace through the second and carried it into the third. The game's only other penalty came 6:25 into the third and each time the Rangers had a power play, they moved the puck perfectly, each pass more crisp than the last, they just couldn’t find the back of the net or made one pass too many. As the clock ticked, the Rangers pulled Georgiev for a last ditch effort and had a couple good chances to force an overtime but alas, Saros stood tall and the Preds would complete their hat trick of wins against the metropolitan rivals in the Devils, Isles and Rangers.
One game day change to the line up was Libor Hajek came in for Nils Lundkvist, who was dealing with a non-covid related illness. For the first time this season, Hajek got a taste of the action and played pretty well. With Tinordi currently on a conditioning stint in Hartford, Libor is the team’s seventh defender. Assuming Lundkvist is feeling better this week, I wouldn’t expect to see much more of Hajek unless anything else comes up but it’s good to know that if needed, he can still hold his own out there. It’ll be interesting to see what the Rangers end up doing with him as they don’t want to lose him for nothing but clearly have no plans of using him as part of their everyday line up.
The latest on Igor Shesterkin is that he is skating and a return is possible in the coming week. With another set of back to back games coming up, I’m sure the hope is that he will be good to go by Tuesday but wouldn’t be surprised if they hold off until they are 110% certain he is ready to go. Georgiev is playing well and they have Kinkaid as an option to play. I wouldn't be surprised if Georgiev gets the Colorado game and Kinkaid, or Shesterkin play against the Coyotes. This set of back to back comes on the road as the Rangers will head to Colorado and then Arizona for the next day. Look for the Rangers to have a better showing in this rematch with Colorado then they did last week as they’ll look for four points on the road.
Chris Feldman
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