Rangers Begin Home-And-Home with Flyers

               The Rangers and Flyers begin a crucial home-and-home series that will have implications in the race for the playoffs (7:00 P.M. ET, MSG).

               Thursday night, the Rangers defeated the Montreal Canadiens 5-2. The Rangers found themselves down 2-0 late in the second period, when Phillip Di Giuseppe got the Blueshirts on the board on a gorgeous feed from Adam Fox. In the third, the Rangers slowly took over and Mika Zibanejad tied the game halfway through the period. Just over a minute later, Fox’s shot from the point beat Carey Price to give the Blueshirts their first lead of the game.

               “He just continues to play at an elite level,” said head coach David Quinn after the game on Fox. “People continue to talk about all these Rookie of the Year candidates, and I don’t hear his name enough.”

The Rangers power-play would come through on a Ryan Strome redirection to give them a two-goal lead with under five minutes left. Strome would then ice the game with an empty net goal.

Alex Georgiev was particularly strong in the first 40 minutes to help keep the Rangers in the game. The 23-year-old finished the game with 32 saves in a winning effort to improve his road record to 13-4-0.

Like the rest of his teammates, Georgiev will have a short turnaround as the Rangers will play in Philadelphia on Friday night for a crucial game where the Bulgarian born goalie will once again make the start. Since Igor Shesterkin suffered a rib fracture in a car accident, Georgiev has started each game. Pavel Buchnevich who was very shaken up from the accident, skated in Montreal on Thursday morning. Buchnevich is likely to return to the lineup over the course of the next couple of games.

The Flyers currently sit just five points above the Rangers in the standings with the same amount of games played. If the Rangers can win both games in regulations, they’ll find themselves just one point behind the Flyers heading into the final stretch. However, the first game in Philadelphia on Friday night will be a massive test for the Rangers. The Flyers haven’t played since Tuesday and are well rested whereas the Rangers are playing their third game in four days and were in another country Thursday night. On top of that, the Flyers have been lights out on home ice and are tied for the most home wins in the league with 22.

Former Ranger’s head coach Alain Vigneault will be looking to put a halt to the Rangers nine-game road winning streak. Along with him, will be former Rangers center Kevin Hayes who has over 20 goals this season. But leading the Flyers in points is Travis Konecny who has 57 points in 60 games. Claude Giroux and Sean Couturier are also massive threats who the Rangers will have to keep an eye on.

Carter Hart will get the start for the Flyers. Hart is 20-12-3 with a 2.51 goals against average and a .909 save percentage.

The Blueshirts will need big performances up and down the lineup to win the game. Artemi Panarin extended his point streak to eleven-games which is one game shy of his career high. Zibanejad also extended his point streak to a career high nine-games and his goal streak to a career high six-games. Zibanejad’s six-game goal streak is tied for the longest in the NHL this season.

If Buchnevich is unavailable for tonight’s game, the Rangers will stick with the exact same lineup they had in Montreal.

Projected Lineup

Kreider-Zibanejad-Chytil

Panarin-Strome-Fast

Di Giuseppe-Howden-Kakko

Lemieux-McKegg-Gauthier

Smith-Trouba

Lindgren-Fox

Staal-DeAngelo

Georgiev