Game 82: Regular season finale is still meaningless

AP Photo/Fred Vuich

The Rangers are playing host to the Penguins tonight in a game that means nothing to both clubs. Unlike last night, where the Senators were playing for home ice in the first round, the Penguins have been locked into their matchup for quite some time now. They will be using tonight to rest some players before the playoff push begins.

As for the Rangers, Antti Raanta gets the start, giving Henrik Lundqvist –who has been solid since his return– a night off. Outside of that, expect some more guys to be rested. We likely won’t know until game time what Alain Vigneault does with the roster. Enjoy one more night of stress free hockey.

Penguins Systems

The best part about facing the Penguins is that the Rangers faced them last year in the playoffs. So I have a very detailed systems comparison between the two teams. Go check it out here.

If you don’t want to read it, here’s the long and short of it. Mike Sullivan has the Penguins running a 2-1-2 forecheck, much like Sully used to have when he was an assistant here under John Tortorella. The Penguins run a full zone in the defensive zone, overloading the boards and switching to a box+1 depending on puck location. On special teams, Sully runs a 1-3-1/umbrella hybrid powerplay and a full fledged zone hybrid (box, diamond, wedge+1) penalty kill.

For more details on hockey systems, check out our Systems page.

Disclaimer: This was written on Saturday. The lines are in no way accurate. These Penguins lines are from the last time the two teams played. The Rangers lines are from yesterday.

Penguins Lines:

Conor Sheary-Sidney Crosby-Bryan Rust
Scott Wilson-Carter Rowney-Phil Kessel
Chris Kunitz–Nick Bonino-Patric Hornqvist
Tom Kuhnackl-Matt Cullen-Oskar Sundqvist

Brian Dumoulin-Justin Schultz
Ian Cole-Chad Ruhwedel
Mark Streit-Cameron Gaunce

PP1: Crosby-Bonino-Kessel-Sheary-Schultz
PP2: Kunitz-Cullen-Hornqvist-Ruhwedel-Streit

Matt Murray gets the start.

Rangers Lines

Chris Kreider–Mika Zibanejad–Pavel Buchnevich
JT Miller–Kevin Hayes–Michael Grabner
Jimmy Vesey–Brandon Pirri–Taylor Beck
Tanner Glass–Oscar Lindberg–Matt Puempel