Bantering Points: 5/9/17

The Rangers find themselves staring into the face of the reaper tonight. Unlike how how he's usually portrayed, the reaper stands a hair over six feet tall, clad in a red sweater with a roman centurion plastered on the front. On the back, the sweater is embroidered with the #25 and the phrase "Neil", which is of unknown origin. If New York wants to live to fight another day, they'll have to do everything in their power to cheat the reaper himself, and prevent the one they call "Neil" from running amok. Here are today's news and links:

Rangers News:

• Larry Brooks goes off on Alain Vigneault's constant touting of his team's experience as an excuse for sub-par performance (NY Post)
• Brett Cyrgalis notes that Alain Vigneault laughs in the face of death itself, as the Rangers' coach has shrugged off the reaper's looming specter (NY Post)
• Steve Zipay hears about how despite nerves heading into tonight's elimination game, the Blueshirts will be ready to play once the puck drops (Newsday)
• Justin Tasch thinks that despite losing his last two elimination games, New York must rely on Henrik Lundqvist to guide the team to victory (NY Daily News)
• Ian Mendes suggests that fans have gotta hear both sides of the merits of the reaper (TSN)
• Derek Radich details what the Rangers must do to force a Game 7 back in Ottawa (Elite Sports NY)
• Tom Castro believes that the team will need to get creative if they'd like to prevent Oscar Lindberg from becoming a member of the Vegas Golden Knights (Elite Sports NY)
• Dave Shapiro argues that the time has come for Alain Vigneault to start leaning on Brady Skjei (Blue Seat Blogs)
• Shapiro also offered his thoughts heading into what could be the last Rangers game of the season (Blue Seat Blogs)
• Garrett Gartino lists five keys to tonight's action if New York wants to extend its season (Blue Line Station)
• George Ruggiero highlights which of the team's forwards should be on the ice when a lead needs to be defended (Blue Line Station)
• Post Practice Interviews: Alain Vigneault,(5:40) Henrik Lundqvist,(2:50) Dan Girardi,(1:40) J.T. Miller,(1:17) Brady Skjei,(1:06) Tanner Glass,(1:09) and Derek Stepan (1:58)/

Around the NHL:

• The New York Islanders are likely to offer forward John Tavares an eight year contract in the hopes of keeping him chained to their franchise and not moving on for the greener pastures of Toronto (Sportsnet)
• Jen Neale saw that Pittsburgh Penguins forward Sidney Crosby and head coach Mike Sullivan had contradicting views on concussion evaluation (Puck Daddy)
• Shawn Ferris says that the time has come to stop worrying about shot parity (Hockey Graphs)/