AP Photo/Gerry Broome

The Rangers are in Carolina tonight looking to extend their winning streak to three in a row. They will be even more shorthanded though, as they are without Rick Nash and Henrik Lundqvist. Luckily Carolina has awful goaltending and trouble scoring. This is the third in a row against weak teams as well. So this win streak was easily predictable. Naturally, hello trap game.

If the Rangers are aiming to mirror a performance, they’d be best aiming to mirror the performance on Tuesday against Florida. Antti Raanta stood on his head on Monday to get the win over Tampa Bay in a game that was riddled with bad process. At this time of the year, with a playoff spot solidified, getting consistent and stable process means more than points. Play the right way, and wins in the playoffs will come.

Canes Systems

Under Bill Peters, the Canes play a passive 1-2-2 on the forecheck and look to trap up the neutral zone. In their own end they run your standard low zone collapse. Not the most exciting of systems. On special teams, they run an umbrella powerplay, and a diamond/box hybrid PK.

For more on these systems, check out our Hockey Systems page.

Canes Lines 

Sebastian Aho-Jordan Staal-Valentin Zykov
Jeff Skinner-Viktor Rask-Elias Lindholm
Teuvo Teravainen-Derek Ryan-Lee Stempniak
Joakim Nordstrom-Jay McClement-Patrick Brown

Jacob Slavin-Justin Faulk
Noah Hanifin-Brett Pesce
Klas Dahlbeck-Ryan Murphy

PP1: Staal-Aho-Lindholm-Teravainen-Faulk
PP2: Ryan-Rask-Skinner-Stempniak-Hanifin

Cam Ward gets the start.

Rangers Lines 

Pavel Buchnevich-Mika Zibanejad-JT Miller
Chris Kreider-Derek Stepan-Mats Zuccarello
Jimmy Vesey-Kevin Hayes-Matt Puempel
Tanner Glass-Oscar Lindberg-Brandon Pirri

Ryan McDonagh–Brendan Smith
Marc Staal–Nick Holden
Brady Skjei–Steven Kampfer

PP1: Zibanejad-Buchnevich-Vesey-Miller-McDonagh
PP2: Stepan-Hayes-Kreider-Zuccarello-Holden

Antti Raanta gets the start.

Injuries/Scratches:  Jesper Fast (shoulder), Rick Nash (upper body), Kevin Klein (back), Dan Girardi (ankle), Adam Clendening (healthy), Michael Grabner (hip), Henrik Lundqvist (lower body)

Crazy Prediction: A Gordie Howe hat trick for someone, doesn’t matter who. Haven’t seen one in a while.

Game time is 7pm. Gifs are on @blueseatblogs. Be sure to follow our snapchat (blueseatblogs) too!

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