I felt like finding the most dated picture I could.

After Tuesday’s embarrassing loss in Pittsburgh, the Rangers are home to face a Minnesota Wild team that is turning heads. They are tied with the Rangers in goal differential (+33), and are doing it with solid overall defense. The Wild have allowed just 62 goals all season, second to Columbus (wow). But the Wild have scored just 95 goals. So they are stifling other teams and winning low scoring affairs.

The Rangers will need to solve Devan Dubnyk to win this game, which has proven to be difficult for every other NHL team. With no set lineup as of the writing of this post, we don’t know which forwards are healthy or which defensemen will actually play. There’s a lot of variables heading into this game, but what does play into the Rangers’ favor is that Minnesota is playing the second of a back-to-back.

Wild Systems

Bruce Boudreau is the new man in Minnesota. I haven’t watched much of them, but when he was with Anaheim, the Ducks used an aggressive 1-2-2 forecheck. The defense were not afraid to get involved in the rush, looking to fly the zone early if there’s a chance for a break.  With a late lead, the Ducks tended to sit back use their 1-2-2 more conservatively. Overall, this is comparable to AV’s system.

When it comes to defensive zone schemes, the Ducks were moderately aggressive, sending a forward to challenge the points while everyone else collapsed in the zone and overload the half boards. Their powerplay strategy was a 1-3-1. Their penalty kill formation was generally a diamond force, which sends a player high to challenge the point.

My guess is Boudreau uses this in Minnesota as well.

Wild Lines

Nino Niederreiter-Eric Staal-Charlie Coyle
Jason Zucker-Mikko Koivu-Mikael Granlund
Chris Stewart-Tyler Graovac-Jason Pominville
Jordan Schroeder-Patrick Cannone-Kurtis Gabriel

Ryan Suter-Jared Spurgeon
Jonas Brodin-Matt Dumba
Marco Scandella-Christian Folin

PP1: Coyle-Staal-Stewart-Spurgeon-Suter
PP2: Granlund-Koivu-Niederreiter-Pominville-Brodin

Devan Dubnyk gets the start.

Rangers Lines

Chris Kreider–Derek Stepan–Mats Zuccarello
Michael Grabner–Kevin Hayes–J.T. Miller
Jimmy Vesey–Oscar Lindberg–Jesper Fast
Matt Puempel–Marek Hrivik–Brandon Pirri

Ryan McDonagh–Dan Girardi
Marc Staal–Nick Holden
Brady Skjei–Kevin Klein

PP1: Kreider-Stepan-Pirri-Zucc-McDonagh
PP2: Miller-Vesey-Hayes-Skjei-Klein

Henrik Lundqvist gets the start.

Injuries/Scratches: Mika Zibanejad (broken leg),  Pavel Buchnevich (back spasms), Rick Nash (groin), Adam Clendening (healthy)

Crazy Prediction: Four goals on Devan Dubnyk.

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