Chris Kreider to return tonight against Boston.

Let’s call this the Lafrenière game. He took getting scratched personally. At long last, he not only put up numbers, but made plays that a 1st overall pick makes. His highlight reel goal in the 3rd period will be seen for days. He may very well hit 20 goals by the end of the season. Not only that, but if he is getting hot at the right time, look out for what he can accomplish during the playoffs.

The major concern is going to be the health and availability of Kaapo Kakko, who took a pretty awkward fall in the early stages of the game. After being out of the lineup for 10 weeks, it would be incredibly unfortunate that he was yet again injured. He was starting to look really comfortable playing alongside Filip Chytil.

On a more positive note, despite it being the Red Wings, Igor Shesterkin played a tremendous game, going the distance and getting a shutout, his 5th of the season. He had a few bumpy games the last couple of weeks, but if he regresses to his mean of dominance, I would hate to be any team having to beat him in a 7-game series.

Auston Matthews will get the MVP for the amount of goals he has put up, but Igor has to be in the top 2 on most ballots for what he did for a large portion of the season with the save percentages and goals against as low as they were. Practically a carbon copy year of Henrik Lundqvist’s Vezina year. Without Igor early on, it’s a true wonder how the Rangers do while they were figuring out how to play in Gallant’s systems. The fact they have this guy locked up now and at a $5.6 million cap hit is highway robbery for the franchise.

Rangers 1, Red Wings 0

The Rangers go with a 3-2 setup on the 5-on-3, which draws defenders away from their top shooters in Artemiy Panarin and Mika Zibanejad. Naturally, Zibanejad scored after the two played catch.

Rangers 2, Red Wings 0

Frank Vatrano started this with a hit to force a turnover, and then jumped into the ensuing rush. The turnover was a problem, as was the Detroit defenders backing all the way to the hash marks, giving Vatrano too much room to shoot. Cheap shot by Dylan Larkin after.

Rangers 3, Red Wings 0

The Rangers force a turnover at the blue line, which created a 50/50 puck that Filip Chytil chipped ahead to Lafreniere to start a 2-on-1. Lafreniere looked pass, then fired it through Thomas Greiss. The fake pass froze the defender, which gave Lafreniere time to tee it up.

Rangers 4, Red Wings 0

The Lafreniere game, because of this one.

Last thought for this matinee matchup, it was said previously, but we’ll say it again: The Rangers won the deadline. Vatrano has been money on the line with Zibanejad and Kreider, scoring his 7th as a Ranger today. Mika scoring on the power play in the first period helped pad his stats for his career year as well. But the buck doesn’t stop there.

Andrew Copp has also been the right fit to play on a line with Ryan Strome and Artemi Panarin. His abilities to forecheck and open up the ice for Panarin to do his magic makes that line a legit scoring threat every time they are on the ice.  I would put the Rangers top 9 vs virtually any team’s top 9 when healthy. The flexibility and versatility of this lineup is something special.  Is it May yet?

Share: 

Mentioned in this article:

More About: