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Traverse City: Schedule and Preview

Hockey’s finally back.

Believe it or not, there will be New York Rangers hockey this week. The 2018 Traverse City Tournament kicks off this Friday. The Rangers first game will be against the prospects of the Dallas Stars.

The Rangers Schedule

Friday Sept. 7 | Dallas, 7:00 PM ET

Saturday Sept. 8 | Minnesota, 6:30 PM

Monday Sept. 10 | Detroit, 4:00 PM

Tuesday Sept. 11 | Placement Game, Time TBD

New York is in the Ted Lindsay Division with Dallas, the Minnesota Wild, and the Detroit Red Wings. The Gordie Howe Division is comprised of the St. Louis Blues, the Chicago Blackhawks, the Carolina Hurricanes, and the Columbus Blue Jackets. The first stage of the tournament is a three-game round robin. After that, the tournament will wrap-up with four one-game playoffs (the fir,st seed from the Ted Lindsay Division plays the first seed from the Gordie Howe division and so on) on Sept. 11 to determine this year’s champion.

Rangers Announce 2018 Traverse City Tournament Roster

What Traverse City Means To The Rangers Attending

Last week, Joe Fortunato highlighted some of the key Rangers prospects to watch in the tournament. The Rangers should do well this year given the quality of the prospects they are sending to Michigan, but it is important to remember just how fast and loose this tournament is played. Coaches keep their systems as simple as possible because of time constraints. So, it’s important to not read too much into the performance of any single player or a group of players in the four-game tournament.

Still, it’s hard to not get excited about what we could see in Traverse City. In addition to sending two prospects from the NHL Network’s current Top 50 Prospects — Filip Chytil and Lias Andersson — the Rangers are also sending recently acquired prospects Brett Howden, Libor Hajek, and Ryan Lindgren. It will also be interesting to see how European free agent signings Ville Meskanen and Michael Lindqvist measure up because of their experience playing against men in Finland and Sweden.

The Rangers 2018 Traverse City Tournament Roster

Forwards: Lias Andersson, Filip Chytil, Gabriel Fontaine, Tim Gettinger*, Brett Howden, Reese Johnson, Dawson Leedahl, Michael Lindqvist, Drew Melanson, Ville Meskanen, Kyle Potts, Ty Ronning*, Jason Salvaggio, Jakob Stukel.

Defenseman: Brandon Crawley, Sean Day*, Nico Gross, Libor Hajek, Tyson Helgesen, Joey Keane, Ryan Lindgren, Derek Pratt.

Goalies: Jeremy Brodeur, Chris Nell.

Bold = Free Agent invite

* = Third year in tournament

You can watch this year’s tournament streaming live on Fox Sports Go.

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