The Need to Knows
- The Time: 4pm PT
- The Place: Madison Square Garden, Manhatten, New York City
- Place to Watch: ROOT-Northwest, MSG Network, ESPN+, SportsNet+
- Place to Listen: KJR 93.3-FM
- An Opposing Viewpoint: Blueshirt Banter
Know Your Enemy
- While The Rangers still rule the Metropolitan Roost; they’re slipping up a bit. They have a 27-13-2 record, but are 4-4-2 in their last ten games, and 56 points; a mere 3 point lead over the Carolina Hurricanes.
- Once again leading the Rangers is thee baldest man in the NHL; Artemi Panarin, who has 59 points in 42 games. He’s also got the team lead in goals; with 27.
- Panarin and Chris Kreider are lighting it up on the man-advantage, though Kreider has the team lead with 9 power play goals, though they’re hardly the only ones doing so. The Rangers boast the 2nd-Best power play in the league, with a 28.2% success rate.
- New York’s goaltending is kinda odd; the unquestioned starter is Igor Sheshterkin, but he’s currently lagging behind Jonathan actual Quick in terms of results. Sheshterkin has a .903 SV% in 27 starts, while Quick has had 15 starts, and a .912 SV%. Funny how that works.
Game Preview
Well, yesterday sucked. A lot.
The Kraken’s win streak ended up gone as a result of a hard snap thanks to a heady cocktail of injuries, more injuries, and more injuries…which leads us right into tonight’s contest.
If it makes you feel any better, absolutely nobody who follows the Rangers right now is any happier than you are.
When I say “The Rangers are 4-4-2”, I mean they’ve dropped some truly impossible losses; they went 1-1 against Washington over the weekend; both of them decided by a single goal, they got beat up bad by Carolina, dropped a shootout loss to the Habs, and have been spanked by St. Louis and Vancouver. All of that was the last 2 or 3 weeks, and just about everybody is unhappy. The loss of Kaapo Kakko back in November didn’t hobble them entirely…but his on-ice impact was missed sorely right up until he finally made his way onto the roster for their win over Washington…but it was one that was a little more hard-fought than they’d want it to be.
Part of this is that really dirty secret of Rangers hockey coming home to roost; they’ve got a ton of shooting talent and a ton of great finish…but they can be locked down pretty badly if you know how to keep the net-front clean, they attack almost exclusively on the rush or from the right side of the ice most of the time, and try to bias shots right in front of the goalie if they can. If you can lock that down, you can beat them pretty handily, because their defense is uh…giving up a lot of shots right in front of their goalies right now.
Of course, that’s no guarantee for the Kraken, because they’re very beat up right now; they’ve gotten several of their best players on the mend, have just called up John Hayden to be an emergency fill-in hot off of a whuppin’ of Vegas’ farm team, and this is still a Rangers team that either grinds you to dust or drops five goals on you at the worst possible time, and quickly. All on the 2nd half of a road back-to-back, something they have to get used to now, because it’s coming up three more times this season.
Tonight’s game will be a good tune-up for the actually dangerous team that they’ll have to play before they come home. Let’s see if they can pull themselves out of this skid.
LET’S GO KRAKEN
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