Photo: NHL.com
The Rangers played a solid game on Wednesday night, but lost to the Canucks in a weird third period. The process was there, but those are the bounces in hockey. Since the process was there, and has been for most of this month, the hope is the process continues in Vancouver and the Rangers get better results.
Luckily the Oilers are not a good team. They have great talent, but are very top heavy and have a terrible blue line and goaltending. Anders Nilsson has been solid of late, guiding the Oilers to four straight wins though. It’s not about who you meet, it’s when you meet them. The Rangers are meeting the Oilers while they are streaking. But again, right process is the goal. Right process breeds good results, even if in the short term there is a slide, as mentioned this afternoon.
Oilers Systems
I haven’t watched the Oilers much, but in San Jose Todd McLellan had his Sharks mostly running an aggressive 2-1-2 forecheck, mixing in some 1-2-2 depending on game situation. In the defensive zone schemes they overloaded the boards and played zone defense when the puck is at the points or down low. The power play was a 1-3-1 and their penalty kill formations were hybrid (depends on puck location/opposition setup). It’s a fair assumption to expect the same from Edmonton.
Oilers Lines
Tayler Hall-Leon Draisaitl-Teddy Purcell
Jujhar Khaira-Ryan Nugent-Hopkins-Jordan Eberle
Matt Hendricks-Mark Letestu-Lauri Korpikoski
Luke Gazdic-Anton Lander-Iiro Pakarinen
Darnell Nurse-Andrej Sekera
Oscar Klefbom-Justin Schultz
Brandon Davidson-Eric Gryba
PP1: Purcell-Draisaitl-RNH-Hall-Schultz
PP2: Purcell-Draisaitl-Eberle-Hall-Schultz
PK: Hendricks, Letestu, RNH, Purcell, Lander, Korpikoski, Klefbom, Davidson, Gryba, Nurse, Sekera
Anders Nilsson gets the start.
Rangers Lines
Chris Kreider–Oscar Lindberg–Rick Nash
Kevin Hayes–Derick Brassard–Mats Zuccarello
J.T. Miller–Dominic Moore–Jesper Fast
Tanner Glass–Jarret Stoll–Emerson Etem
Ryan McDonagh–Dan Girardi
Marc Staal–Dan Boyle
Keith Yandle–Dylan McIlrath
PP1: Nash-??-Zuccarello, Brassard-McDonagh
PP2: Kreider-Hayes-Lindberg, Yandle-??
PK: Nash, Stoll, Lindberg, Moore, Fast, Girardi, McDonagh, Staal, Boyle
Henrik Lundqvist is in net.
Scratches/Injuries: Derek Stepan (ribs), Viktor Stalberg (healthy), Kevin Klein (abdominal strain)
Crazy Prediction: Glass scores (leaving this here until he does).
Be sure to check out our ticket link if you’re looking for tickets to the game. Game time is 9pm on MSG. All gifs will be on nyrgifs.com.
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