The New York Rangers head to Columbus to take on the Blue Jackets before heading back to New York City for their home opener. Going 2-0 on the road to start the season would be a huge confidence boost for this group.
The New York Rangers are looking to build off of their phenomenal effort in Buffalo on Thursday night as they skated to a 5-1 victory in their season opener.
The Columbus Blue Jackets will be a much different-looking opponent for the Rangers. Unfortunately for Columbus, they saw their best blue liner, Zach Werenski, suffer a quad contusion after taking an awkward looking hit from Garnet Hathaway of the Philadelphia Flyers and he is now expected to miss 1-2 weeks.
These kinds of games are the ones that matter later in the season when you need all the points you can get. New York has an opportunity to take advantage of a weaker Blue Jackets blue line, but they can't take the opponent lightly. With Peter Laviolette at the helm, I don't see them taking any nights off.
I was not in attendance for morning skate today in Columbus, but Mollie Walker confirmed that Igor Shesterkin will get the nod tonight. Shesterkin was outstanding in the season opener, stopping 23 of 24 shots while boasting a +1.2 goals saved above expected and a .960 save percentage.
Elvis Merzlikins will get the nod for the Blue Jackets, per Mark Scheig of The Hockey Writers. Despite losing, Merzlikins had a strong showing against the Philadelphia Flyers in the teams home opener. He made 33 saves on 35 shots and had a +0.7 goals saved above expected.
Walker also reported that Kaapo Kakko took a stick to the face this morning, but it most likely just requires a few stitches, we will most likely see him take the ice for the game tonight.
I haven't seen a confirmed lineup this morning for the Rangers, but from what it sounds like, everything will be the same from Thursday night except Jimmy Vesey will be playing instead of Tyler Pitlick. Again, this isn't 100% confirmed.
Projected lineup:
Kreider-Zibanejad-Kakko
Panarin-Chytil-Lafreniere
Cuylle-Trocheck-Wheeler
Goodrow-Bonino-Vesey
Lindgren-Fox
Miller-Trouba
Gustafsson-Schneider
Shesterkin
Quick
i'm very curious to see how the Panarin-Chytil-Lafreniere line follows up their excellent performance from Game 1. Let's see if they can set the tone again for the Blueshirts.
Columbus doesn't have a ton of top-to-bottom skill, but the Rangers will have to do their best to play physical on guys like Johnny Gaudreau, Patrik Laine, and Adam Fantilli. Those three can make things happen at any moment if they have enough time and space, so look for the defensemen like Ryan Lindgren, Jacob Trouba and K'Andre Miller to play a little bit tighter on them.
There aren't a lot of changes that need to be made for the Rangers, if they come out and play the same way that they did against Buffalo, they should be successful.