Here are today’s news and links:

Rangers News:

• Peter Botte sees some similarities between Henrik Lundqvist’s current situation and the one the New York Giants had to navigate with Eli Manning (NY Post)
• Colin Stephenson relays word that Brendan Lemieux expects to return to the lineup sooner rather than later (Newsday)
• Stephenson also examines the difficult decisions the Blueshirts must make prior to the trade deadline (Newsday)
• Joseph Ostapiuk projects where Lundqvist will find himself on the all-time goaltending leaderboards when he decided to call it a career (Blue Line Station)
• Dominick Renna argues that by the time New York resolves its current goaltending logjam, the resolution can’t be one that features Lundqvist on Broadway (Elite Sports NY)
• Jame$ Mirtle ponder$ whether or not the Toronto Maple Leaf$ can afford to $hell out the nece$$ary a$$et$ to acquire Alexandar Georgiev from the Ranger$ (The Athletic)
• A two point effort from Yegor Rykov, including his first goal since joining the Hartford Wolfpack’s lineup, wasn’t enough to defeat the Hershey Bears, as the Wolfpack fell 5-4 in overtime (Official Team Site)
• Media Availability: David Quinn (8:26) and Brett Howden (1:17) (Official Team Site)/

Around the NHL:

• Washington Capitals’ forward Alexander Ovechkin recorded his second consecutive hat trick (yes, you read that correctly) to pass Mario Lemieux and tie Steve Yzerman on the all-time goal scoring list enroute to a 6-4 victory over the New York Islanders (TSN)
• Dallas Stars’ defenseman Stephen Johns is set to return to the lineup for the first time since March 29th, 2018 following a serious bout with post-traumatic headaches (NBC Sports)
• The Edmonton Oilers are closing in on a four year contract extension with forward Zack Kassain (Sportsnet)
• Matt Larkin lists 30 players to keep an eye on as the trade deadline draws closer and closer (The Hockey News)/