Game Preview: 2016 Home Opener Against NYI

Photo by Jim McIsaac/NHLI via Getty Images

The wait is over: the New York Rangers open their regular season tonight against the rival Islanders at home, in what is sure to be a night to remember. The World Cup of Hockey and the long preseason were nice, but they’re nothing compared to the real thing. While we don’t have much to go on so far, there’s still enough out there to draw some conclusions about how these two teams match up.

With the Rangers opening at home for the first time since 2007, the team is sure to be motivated and hyped up for tonight’s matchup. Expect the Islanders to come in just as motivated to play spoiler to their cross-town rivals and start the season off with a win. Without further adieu, here’s your 2016 regular season opening night preview.

OFFENSE

The Rangers retooled their forward corps this offseason, bringing in a bevy of fast, skilled young forwards. Given the abundance of talent in the group the Rangers now have the opportunity to roll four balanced lines, each one of them capable of scoring or playing in the defensive end.

On the top line (although there really is no top line) we have the now-veteran Derek Stepan between Mats Zuccarello and Jimmy Vesey, the highly touted college free agent who spurned Nashville and Buffalo for a chance to play on Broadway. It should be interesting to see how Vesey meshes with Stepan and Zuc, given the former’s excellent puck distribution and the latter’s noted playmaking ability.

Next we have the line of Chris Kreider, Mika Zibanejad, and Pavel Buchnevich in tact from the preseason. This is the line that’s most exciting to me, with Kreider’s speed and size, Zibanejad’s one-timer, and Buchnevich’s slick playmaking ability a real killer combination.

For the third line J.T. Miller and Rick Nash play along side Kevin Hayes, and given the way the latter two are able to hang onto the puck with their size and their reach it should be exciting to see this line get some serious puck possession in.

Finally there’s the fourth line of Michael Grabner, one of the fastest players on the team, Brandon Pirri, whose ability to generate shots knows no bounds, and Jesper Fast, one of the most defensively responsible forwards in the group. All four of these lines should be able to take any one of the Islanders’ lines, which of course brings us to our opponents.

As for the Islanders, well they lost Kyle Okposo to free agency this summer, dealing a serious blow to their scoring ability. They managed to pick up Andrew Ladd, who will look to make a strong first impression on his new fan base. Also on the Isles’ top line is Jason Chimera, filling in for the inexplicably waived P.A. Parenteau.

I’m going to be honest here – this is the only Islanders line that really scares me, and it barely scares me. John Tavares is the main reason for that, and aside from him there’s few players in the Islanders’ forward group that really jump out at me. Ryan Strome and Anders Lee are both good players, but neither of them broke 20 goals last year. Brock Nelson holding things down on the second line is important to look out for, but neither Josh Bailey nor newcomer Anthony Beauvillier are particularly formidable as his linemates. I think it’s safe to say here that the Rangers have the edge in terms of offensive firepower, but all of the offensive firepower in the world means little if you don’t have things tied together on your backend.

DEFENSE

Not a whole lot to be said here as far as the Rangers go – we all know how we feel about the two most controversial defensemen on this team. AV seems to be dead set on keeping Dan Girardi paired with Ryan McDonough, but I will say this: Marc Staal seems to have bounced back slightly in preseason, and if he keeps it up during the regular season I will be happy to button it and withhold my criticism. He’s paired up with Nick Holden, who was acquired via trade from Colorado, and I’m also interested to see how he does as well.

Lastly we’ve got Brady Skjei and Adam Clendening, which should actually be kind of fun to watch. Although Skjei had a rough preseason the potential is there, and his skating combined with Clendening’s puck moving ability could be a low-key potent force on the ice.

The Islanders are led on defense by the formidable shutdown pair of Nick Leddy and Travis Hamonic, and from there on down they’ve got Calvin de Haan with Johnny Boychuk, and then Thomas Hickey with Ryan Pulock. I’m not overly familiar with the Islanders’ defensemen so I’ll keep this short: they’re better overall than the Rangers’ defensemen, but if the Rangers can take advantage of that third pairing and manage to neutralize Leddy and Boychuk’s formidable slap shots, they’ll be ok.

GOALTENDING

It goes without saying that Henrik Lundqvist is simply the best there is. Despite giving up a couple of big goals in the World Cup of Hockey he finished the tournament having played a solid game, and those readers who have been following this blog throughout the summer will know that we are firmly against the proposition that Hank is in decline. That said Halak is no walk in the park himself, and he had perhaps the only goalie performance better than Hank’s. All in all this should be a fun goalie matchup.

All of this said, I really have no idea how tonight is going to go. I’m just excited for Rangers hockey to be back, an excited to be opening the season at home against in a storied rivalry matchup. Here’s to the 2016-17 NHL season, folks.