rangers leafs alex georgiev

The Rangers are finally back home, and they have an immediate test with Toronto coming to town. The Leafs are very good. They are solid up and down the lineup, can score seemingly at will, and have great goaltending. The big issue with the Rangers is the second line playing like crap. It doesn’t take an astute eye to notice that Strome and Panarin haven’t played well at even strength. That duo with Chytil has been hammered at even strength, and has been even more one-and-done in the offensive zone that previous second line iterations. With a fully healthy team, assuming Lafreniere is in, then Goodrow possibly goes back to 2RW. It doesn’t help the one and done nature of the line, but he’s more the type of player that duo looks for.

One and done won’t work against the Leafs. That extra pass, as pretty as it looks when it works, is usually stopped by the good teams. Simply put, they need to be better. It’s not just the second line, of course, but that line gets the brunt of the focus because they are healthy and still not producing. The third and fourth lines are still missing pieces, or just aren’t expected to score. This is also a good test for Braden Schneider, who gets his first good team. I’m very interested in how he looks tonight.

As for the rest of the Rangers. Just play better.

Leafs Lines

Michael Bunting-Auston Matthews-Mitch Marner
Alex KerfootJohn Tavares-William Nylander
Ilya Mikheyev-David Kampf-Pierre Engvall
Kyle Clifford-Jason Spezza-Wayne Simmonds

Morgan Reilly-TJ Brodie
Rasmus Sandin-Timothy Liljegren
Travis Dermott-Alex Biega

Jack Campbell gets the start.

Rangers Lines 

Chris Kreider-Mika Zibanejad-Kaapo Kakko
Artemiy Panarin-Ryan Strome-Filip Chytil
Alexis Lafreniere-Barclay Goodrow-Julien Gauthier
Greg McKegg–Kevin RooneyRyan Reaves

K’Andre Miller–Jacob Trouba
Ryan LindgrenAdam Fox
Patrik Nemeth-Braden Schneider

PP1: Strome-Zibanejad-Panarin-Kreider-Fox
PP2: Gauthier-Chytil-Kakko-Miller-Trouba

Igor Shesterkin gets the start.

Scratches/InjuriesSammy Blais (knee – done for season), Libor Hajek (healthy), Jarred Tinordi (healthy), Dryden Hunt (McKegged)

Crazy Prediction: They actually play better.

Game time is 7pm.

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