The Rangers are at home to face the winless Arizona Coyotes, one of just a few teams worse than the Rangers right now. Tonight marks the return of Derek Stepan (and Antti Raanta/Adam Clendening) to New York since the summer trade. Funny enough, Tony DeAngelo will not be in the lineup for the return.

Stepan’s consistency in New York was something that never ceased to be under appreciated. Stepan played seven seasons in New York, putting up at least 50 points in five of them. The other two were his rookie season and the lockout shortened season. Stepan’s absence has left a true hole on the Rangers, one that has left them struggling.

I personally loved Stepan as a Ranger. Consistent 50-55 point guys are incredibly rare. Sure, he was a little slow on the powerplay and wasn’t an elite center, but he was guaranteed for 50 points a year as a 1/2 C. Fun times.

Yotes Systems

Rick Tocchet is the new man in Arizona, and has them off to a winless start. I know nothing of how Tocchet coaches, but he was with Pittsburgh as an assistant the last three years. I’ll take an educated guess that he runs similar systems to Mike Sullivan. So we can run through those systems and see if they are a match. Hooray systems!

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.

Yotes Lines

Max Domi-Derek Stepan-Clayton Keller
Mario Kempe-Christian Dvorak-Tobias Rieder
Jordan Martinook-Nick Cousins-Christian Fischer
Zac Rinaldo-Brad Richardson-Anthony Duclair

Oliver Ekman-Larsson-Jason Demers
Nicklas Hjalmarsson-Adam Clendening
Alex Goligoski-Luke Schenn

PP1: Domi-Stepan-Keller-Demers-OEL
PP2: Fischer-Dvorak-Duclair-Hjalmarsson-Goligoski

Adin Hill gets the start.

Rangers Lines

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

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

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

Ondrej Pavelec gets the start.

Scratches/Injuries: Paul Carey (healthy), Steven Kampfer (healthy)

Crazy Prediction: No one cries when Stepan is honored.

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

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