What was once a commanding 2-0 series lead for the Blueshirts has turned into a best of three bout with the Devils regaining home ice advantage. After playing their worst game of the series on Monday, the Rangers will look to bounce back tonight and get back to their winning ways in their home away from home, the Prudential Center in the heart of downtown Newark.
New York’s inability to generate much of anything on offense has been the story for the last two games. The Devils haven’t blown the doors off of them, as evidenced by their wins by scores of 2-1 and 3-1, but Gerard Gallant’s squad has struggled to solve Akira Schmid since he took over in goal for New Jersey. The Rangers managed to score on Vitek Vanecek nine times out of the 52 shots they pelted him with, but have only managed to squeak two of their 59 shots against Schmid behind him. That’ll have to change if the team wants to avoid a total collapse.
New York Rangers Lines:
Chris Kreider – Mika Zibanejad – Patrick Kane
Artemiy Panarin – Vincent Trocheck – Vladimir Tarasenko
Alexis Lafreniere – Filip Chytil – Kaapo Kakko
Jimmy Vesey – Barclay Goodrow – Tyler Motte
Ryan Lindgren – Adam Fox
K’Andre Miller – Jacob Trouba
Niko Mikkola – Braden Schneider
Igor Shesterkin
New Jersey Devils Lines:
Timo Meier – Nico Hischier – Jesper Bratt
Erik Haula – Jack Hughes – Ondrej Palat
Tomas Tatar – Michael McLeod – Dawson Mercer
Jesper Boqvist – Curtis Lazar – Nathan Bastian
Jonas Siegenthaler – Dougie Hamilton
Ryan Graves – John Marino
Kevin Bahl – Damon Serverson
Akira Schmid
Player to Watch: Mika Zibanejad
Having spent the first four games of the series doing glorified cardio, the time for Zibanejad to step up is now. It was a similar story last spring, as New York’s star center was a non factor for the first five games of their opening round playoff series against Pittsburgh. Down 2-0 at the first intermission of Game 6 in a series where a loss would end their season, Zibanejad scored a pair of goals in that game to tie things up 2-2. Zibanejad also scored the tying goal in their third period of Game 7 to force overtime, and the rest is history. With the team making some structural power play changes to present him better looks, keep an eye on Zibanejad as the Rangers looks to regain control of this series.
Enjoy the game!