The beauty of playoff hockey? If things don’t go your way one night, you get to do it all over again two nights later. The Rangers are right back at it at the Garden tonight for game two of the series with the Pittsburgh Penguins. It should make for a very interesting match up as both teams are coming off the exhaustion of triple overtime action on Tuesday night. The Penguins held an optional skate yesterday while the Rangers had the day off completely. This will ultimately be a huge game for the Blueshirts who will look to even the series after the heartbreaking overtime loss.
On Pittsburgh’s end, there aren’t many specific updates as we can expect during the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Casey DeSmith and Rickard Rakell, who both left game one at separate times with apparent injuries are listed as day to day. DeSmith’s injury resulted in Wilkes Barre/Scranton goalie Alex D’Orio being called up. D’Orio spent time in the AHL and ECHL this season, starting 22 games with the Penguins JV squad and 11 games with the Wheeling Nailers in the East Coast League. Between the two leagues, D’Orio has a .879 save percentage. The Pens likely won’t worry too much about him as they will look to Louis Domingue to get the start in game two as DeSmith joins Jarry on the injured reserve list. Drew O’Connor will likely be the next man up for Pittsburgh to jump in the lineup for Rakell, pushing Evan Rodrigues or Kasperi Kapanen up to that second line.
For the Rangers, much of the same. The only question following game one was the status of Ryan Lindgren who had to leave the game several times Tuesday night. Gallant said that Lindgren was “pretty banged up” but is expected to be good to go for tonight. This brings a very interesting topic to the conversation. If Lindgren is indeed banged up, enough where his ice time will either be limited or he is at risk of having to leave mid game again, do you dress seven defensemen? That’s a loaded question. Gallant will likely evaluate the efforts of his defesemen from game one to decide whether or not he wants to make any changes regardless of Lindgren’s status. The Rangers next options would be another veteran stay at home defender in Justin Braun, or the young two-way defender with lots of promise in Zac Jones. What makes it such a tough call is the Rangers fourth line played pretty well and if you’re going to dress seven D, who do you take out?
It’s not Barclay Goodrow and it’s not Ryan Reaves which leaves Kevin Rooney? I wouldn’t expect Gallant to go with seven defensemen but it’s definitely worth thinking about. You have to think Patrick Nemeth will get at least one more night on the third pairing with Braden Schneider but if he keeps taking penalties, you have to swap him for Justin Braun. With Lindgren’s health being questionable, if you take Nemeth out of the mix for Braun, you’re left with K’Andre Miller as your only left handed option on the back end. With all that in mind, I would expect the same group for the Rangers tonight:
Kreider - Zibanejad - Vatrano
Panarin - Strome - Copp
Lafreniere - Chytil - Kakko
Goodrow - Rooney - Reaves
Lindgren - Fox
Miller - Trouba
Nemeth - Schneider
Gallant also noted during his media availability yesterday that Igor Shesterkin is fine after facing 80 shots through six periods of hockey, not that there was much question on who would get the start in the Rangers goal. This team has a great opportunity to get back in the series tonight and has to play a full sixty minute game. Louis Domingue came in during double overtime and helped Pittsburgh get the win but you have to consider the shots he was facing were from exhausted players. You have to get pucks on net hard, early and often to get on top of the Penguins early. You don’t want to give them any life if you can help it as they already have the advantage in the series by snagging game one.
As I wrote yesterday, the Rangers despite falling short in the end played pretty well, they just need to do it for a full sixty minutes and clean up in some areas. They have to make the simple play much more frequently than they tend to. This is playoff hockey. Screens, deflections, rebounds, weird rolling pucks are going to be your best friend here. You’re not always going to be able to make the perfect passing plays or pretty moves. You have to play the game with a shoot first mentality and that’s something that Artemi Panarin especially needs to keep in mind. He loves to pass the puck, make the pretty plays and look for his teammates but that’s just not going to fly at this point in the series. Especially with Penguins third string goalie in net you have to let your shot go. Same thing could be said for Vatrano, anytime he has the puck he needs to think shoot first, he has too good of a shot not to.
Defensively, the Rangers need to be a little tighter in their own zone. There were a couple times, especially in the second period where they let Pittsburgh walk all over them. Smart and clean pucks to clear the zone are essential as that became an issue at different points throughout game one as well. High and off the glass, make sure you can make that tape to tape pass if you’re looking to break the puck out using your forwards. As long as the Rangers clean up in those areas, stay out of the box and get as many shots on Domingue as they can, you have to think they have a real good chance to even the series up at one which will be essential going into game three at PNG Paints Arena.
Chris Feldman
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