Rangers vs Habs preview & live conversation

The New York Rangers looking to extend their winning streak to four game as they conclude a brief homestand by taking on the Montreal Canadiens.   They are playing a team that has struggled from opening night and sit near the bottom of the NHL with the fourth worst record in the league.

Igor Shesterkin will be getting the start, his second of the year against the Habs.  With him in net, the Blueshirts beat the Canadiens 3-1 on October 16 in Montreal.  It was a big game for Alexis Lafrenière who scored the go ahead goal in the third period to break a 1-1 tie.  It was his first game in his hometown and he thrilled his family with the clutch goal.

Expectations for the Canadiens in that game were still high though they had dropped their first two games of the season.  They were coming off their unexpected trip to the Stanley Cup Final and no one believed that they could be so bad despite the loss of key personnel.  Now, with Montreal one of the worse teams in the league, this is a game the Rangers should win.

The bad news of course, is that Sammy Blais will have to under surgery on his right knee to repair a torn ACL.  We may see him again on the ice in September.   The good news is that Filip Chytil is back and will center the third line with Barclay Goodrow moving up to the top line again.  Greg McKegg was called up from Hartford, but Julien Gauthier should get another start as he has been playing well.   A Quebec native, he was held out of the game in Montreal and that had to be a disappointment.  Tonight’s game will be significant for him and will be the second time he has faced his hometown team.

While the Blais injury is devastating, the Montreal Canadiens have been hammered by  injuries since the playoffs.  They have lost 70 man-games to injuries compared to only 15 for the  Rangers.  That  doesn’t include the loss of Shea Weber who will likely never play again.

The Canadiens’ offense has been awful, averaging 2.12 goals per game, ahead of only Arizona.  Their power play is ranked 28th at 14.3% and only three teams have a worse penalty kill than Montreal’s 70.7%  success rate.  Defensively, they are allowing 3.41 goals per game.

With a record of 4-11-2 they have played 17 games, the most in the NHL along with the Red Wings. They have won only one of seven road games.

Projected lineups

Don’t look for many changes in a winning lineup with only Blais out and Chytil in.

NEW YORK RANGERS

20 Kreider – 93 Zibanejad – 21 Goodrow
10 Panarin – 16 Strome – 24 Kakko
13 Lafrenière–  72 Chytil – 15 Gauthier
29 Hunt – 17 Rooney – 75 Reaves

55 Lindgren – 23 Fox
79 Miller – 8 Trouba
12 Nemeth – 27 Lundkvist

31 Shesterkin
40 Georgiev

MONTREAL CANADIENS

73 Tyler Toffoli -14  Nick Suzuki-11 Brendan Gallagher
92 Jonathan Drouin -28  Christian Dvorak – 17 Josh Anderson
62  Artturi Lehkonen- 71 Jake Evans – 40 Joel Armia
55 Michael Pezzetta – 25 Ryan Poehling – 60 Alex Belzile

8 Ben Chiarot – 26 Jeff Petry
77 Brett Kulak- 58 David Savard
27 Alexander Romanov  – 20 Chris Wideman

30 Cayden Primeau
35 Sam Montembeault

The injuries keep piling up for the Canadiens.  Goalie Jake Allen suffered a concussion on Saturday when he was run over by Dylan Larkin of the Red Wings.  The are getting Jonathan Drouin back from injury, but Mike Hoffman was just place on injured reserve.  Drouin has not played since November 3.

Goalie Cayden Primeau will be making his seventh NHL start and his first against the Rangers. He’s a Northeastern University alumni and is the son of Keith Primeau. This will be his first road start south of the US-Canadian border.

How to watch and the live conversation

The game will start at 7pm and the telecast will be on MSG Network with the radiocast on ESPN 98.7 FM.  Nationally, the game will be live streamed on ESPN+.

As usual Blue Line Station will be hosting its live in-game conversation using the comments feature below. We’ve had some issues with the comments refreshing and are working on that, so please bear with us. One workaround is to change how the comments sort from “newest” to “oldest” and back to “newest” again.

Join the conversation and share your thoughts with your fellow Ranger fans.