Sustained Rangers offense from the top six is key to playoff success.
Artemi Panarin #10 and Mika Zibanejad #93 of the New York Rangers celebrate their 4-3 victory over the New York Islanders

The NHL has a 2021 season start date of January 13, with training camps opening on January 3. That’s just two short weeks away, and there will be some changes for this season. Teams will carry a taxi squad of 4-6 players, one of which needs to be a goalie. The cap implications are a bit unknown, but the Rangers will be carrying more than the normal number of players. So let’s take a crack at what the NY Rangers opening day lineup might look like.

Forwards

Let’s assume the top-six stay what we expect them to be for this exercise. It’s the bottom six that will be interesting. We only really have “confirmed” lineup spots for 11 forwards. Factoring in the taxi squad of probably two forwards, that’s three more spots to fill. In the end, we probably get something like this:

Chris Kreider-Mika Zibanejad-Pavel Buchnevich
Artemi Panarin-Ryan Strome-Kaapo Kakko
Alexis Lafreniere-Filip Chytil-Julien Gauthier
Brendan Lemieux-Brett Howden-Kevin Rooney
Phil Di Giuseppe-Colin Blackwell

You can flip Howden and Rooney on the fourth line as needed, since they both play center or wing. The big omissions here are Morgan Barron and Patrick Khodorenko. This is just a guess on my part, but a full season in the AHL might be more beneficial to them than staying on the taxi squad. This means they’d need to beat out Howden and/or Rooney. Doable, but we’ve seen David Quinn’s love of Howden impact decisions before.

Defense

This is the tough one. Right defense is set, but it’s left defense that is up in the air. Let’s also assume that the Rangers carry at least two extra defensemen on the taxi squad. The only thing that appears set in stone is that top pair, if you can even call it set.

Ryan Lindgren-Jacob Trouba
Tarmo Reunanen-Adam Fox
Jack Johnson-Tony DeAngelo
Brendan Smith-Anthony Bitetto

Yes, I’m predicting Reunanen to make the team. This is just playing the odds, since Reunanen has more pro time against adults than K’Andre Miller, even though Miller has the higher ceiling. Like with Barron and Khodorenko, Miller probably benefits more from a year to get adjusted to the pros. I’m betting on Reunanen’s adjustment to be minimal.

Another omission is Libor Hajek. I just can’t see the Rangers keeping him on the taxi squad if he doesn’t make the team outright. It’s not that far of a stretch to say Reunanen is already better either. That means he needs to beat out Johnson for the final spot. Given JJ’s spot as a favorite of Jacques Martin, again that seems unlikely.

As an aside, taking coach preference into account is a dangerous game. Yet I did it twice. 

Goalies

The easy one. Teams are going to have to carry three goalies this year. Igor Shesterkin and Alex Georgiev will split the starts, with Keith Kincaid as that third goalie.

Taxi Squad

The paperwork thing is interesting. The taxi squad will be AHL players, just traveling with the team. They will get AHL salaries and be subject to waivers. Before COVID issues came to the forefront, the Blueshirts were likely to carry a spare forward (Di Giuseppe?) and defenseman (Smith?) anyway. They will likely do the same.

This does open an interesting cap scenario with Smith, who is on a one-way deal. This means no matter what, he gets his NHL money. The Rangers could play cap shenanigans and waive him, placing him on the taxi squad. They free up $1 million in cap space, Smith gets his money, and Smith still stays with the club because of the taxi squad.

The NY Rangers opening day lineup is still up in the air, given some of the glaring roster holes. But it is somewhat predictable given that it’s the same roster as last season. The taxi squad wild card is going to keep us guessing right up until puck drop. This might be a wild couple of weeks.

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