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The Rangers closed out their exhibition schedule last night, dropping the finale to the Flyers, 4-2. With all the competition in camp, it has certainly been an interesting pre-season. After Wednesday’s cuts, the Rangers sit at 28 remaining players in camp. As we all sit with baited breathe to see if we are stuck with yet another full season of Tanner Glass, I’m going to lay out my cuts and ideal opening night roster.

This is all for fun and will probably differ, not only from what the club will actually do, but also, these things will change and evolve as the season goes along.

With Magnus Hellberg on waivers and Mackenzie Skapski already in Hartford, the goalies are set. The tandem this season will be Henrik Lundqvist and Antti Raanta, but you already knew that.

The defense is a bit of a mess and there has been no truly stand out performance amongst the younger options, but there have certainly been flashes. Brady Skjei has looked shaky so far in camp, and is waiver exempt, so I would start him in Hartford. He would be down there to log big minutes and provide injury depth, but also to make him force his way into the plans for the big club. This would leave us with seven defensemen, and ideally would be deployed based on matchups.

The idea would be not only to rotate pairs based on who is in the press box, but also choose who the 7th D would be based on the opponent on any given night. I personally would like to see a McDonagh-Klein first pairing, though. After going through the list and possible combinations, the Rangers really don’t have much quality back there.

The forwards are a much trickier knot to untangle. Two young players, Vesey and Buchnevich, presumably negotiated a spot in the NHL lineup when they inked their respective deals, so there is less flexibility to drop one from the top nine in order to fit in, say, Brandon Pirri. When we remove Gabriel Fontaine and Boo Nieves, the Rangers are left with sixteen players for thirteen spots. Place Oscar Lindberg on LTIR, and it’s fifteen for thirteen spots.

Let’s look at the locks: Hayes, Kreider, Miller, Nash, Stepan, Zibenejad, Zuccarello and Fast. That is eight no-doubters. Add in Vesey and Buchnevich for the foregoing reasons, and you are up to ten. Three spots left for Gerbe, Glass, Grabner, Jooris and Pirri. Glass is an easy cut for me. Four players for three spots.

Gerbe, Grabner and Jooris offer somewhat similar skillsets as defensive minded, 4th line and PK options. Pirri, on the other hand, is a pure goal scorer and one of the few shoot first players on the roster. For me, I am finding a spot for Pirri for that very reason. So, now we need two defensive minded players to fill out the 4th line and extra forward spot.

I think Grabner is more or less automatic, considering his speed and penalty killing prowess. Which brings us down to Gerbe v. Jooris for our final roster spot. Both players are extremely similar in their skillsets. Both are defensive minded forwards who can play both the wing and the pivot. The biggest differences are size and age. Gerbe is 29 and Jooris is 26. Neither are long term pieces, so the age difference isn’t really all that big of a deal. Size wise, Jooris is 6’1”, 197lbs, and Gerbe checks in at a diminutive 5’4”, 176lbs.

This is an oddly difficult decision for an extra forward. Honestly, I think I would take Jooris, and use him to increase flexibility depending on the matchup. Pirri throws a bit of a wrench into the traditional roles of the forward group, especially if AV is going to try to shelter Buchnevich and Vesey.

I still do wonder if a trade is coming, especially considering Oscar Lindberg’s pending return. Clearly, nothing has happened on that front, but something has to give. Assuming everything remains status quo, my opening night roster looks like this:

Forwards: Zuccarello, Nash, Miller, Hayes, Zibenejad, Kreider, Stepan, Pirri, Vesey, Buchnevich, Grabner, Fast and Jooris. Lindberg on LTIR.

Defense: McDonagh, Klein, Staal, Clendening, Girardi, McIlrath and Holden

Goaltenders: Lundqvist, Raanta.

Depending on the cap situation, you could always try to keep Gerbe around as a 23rd man on the roster, but I don’t necessarily think that it makes sense to carry three extras, but feel free to disagree.

What do you think? Sound off with your ideal roster in the comments below.

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