As per Andrew Gross, John Tortorella switched up his first and fourth lines, swapping Artem Anisimov and Erik Christensen. Anisimov is now centering the fourth line between Chris Drury and Sean Avery/Mats Zuccarello, and Christensen is centering the first line with Vinny Prospal and Marian Gaborik. When asked about the switch, Torts was very candid, saying that he is not putting Christensen on the first line for his defensive prowess, and that they a unit that will need to generate offense.
The move isn’t unexpected –my feelings about Christensen as a first liner aside– and this line has shown that they can generate offense. The Rangers were simply shut down on Wednesday, and they need to find a way to both break through the Caps defense, and match their physicality. Hopefully this new lineup will generate more offense from the primary scorers.
The other two lines remained intact. The lines we are looking at for tonight’s game:
Vinny Prospal-Erik Christensen-Marian Gaborik
Brandon Dubinsky-Derek Stepan-Ruslan Fedotenko
Wojtek Wolski-Brian Boyle-Brandon Prust
Chris Drury-Artem Anisimov-Sean Avery/Mats Zuccarello
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