jesper fast

Photo Credit: Getty Images / Bruce Bennett

The Rangers are back home tonight after getting swept in their short two game road trip to take on the Ottawa Senators. They will be looking for some form of revenge against the Sens, who ousted the Rangers from the playoffs last year.

The Rangers are hanging around at .500, but that won’t be good enough (obviously) to move the needle among the fans. They need to start playing 60 minutes of hockey consistently. I can’t believe that is an actual problem for this team, but it is.

Sens Systems

The good thing about facing the Sens is that I wrote a detailed piece about the systems that Guy Boucher runs, which you should check out here.

The Cliff Notes version: Guy Boucher runs a 1-1-3 neutral zone forecheck, sending one man in deep with one at the blue line to capitalize off turnovers. They leave three men by the red line to clog the neutral zone and disrupt any speedy breakouts.

In the defensive zone, Boucher runs a standard overload/zone system. The zone will look like an overload, and naturally the look will change depending on puck location. They will likely shift to a box+1 if the puck is behind the net.

On special teams, Boucher runs a standard hybrid 1-3-1/umbrella power play and box/diamond penalty kill. Nothing unusual here.

Senators Lines

Ryan Dzingel-Derick Brassard-Mark Stone
Tom Pyatt-Matt Duchene-Bobby Ryan
Mike Hoffman-Jean-Gabriel Pageau-Alex Burrows
Chris DiDomenico-Nate Thompson-Nicholas Paul

Frederick Claesson-Erik Karlsson
Dion Phaneuf-Cody Ceci
Johnny Oduya-Mark Boroweicki

PP1: Stone-Hoffman-Brassard-Burrows-Karlsson
PP2: Duchess-Dzingel-DiDomenico-Ryan-Phaneuf

Craig Anderson gets the start.

Rangers Lines

Chris Kreider–Mika Zibanejad–Pavel Buchnevich
Rick Nash–Kevin Hayes–Jesper Fast
Michael Grabner-JT Miller-Mats Zuccarello
Jimmy Vesey-Boo Nieves-Paul Carey

Ryan McDonagh–Nick Holden
Brady Skjei–Kevin Shattenkirk
Marc Staal–Brendan Smith

PP1: Nash-Miller-Buchnevich-Zibanejad-Shattenkirk
PP2: Hayes-Desharnais-Kreider-Zuccarello-McDonagh

Henrik Lundqvist gets the start.

Scratches/Injuries: David Desharnais(healthy), Steven Kampfer (healthy)

Crazy Prediction: 60 minutes of hockey?

Game time is 7pm. Be sure to follow on Twitter for gifs, and on our Snapchat for in-game.

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