After a dominating performance against the Carolina Hurricanes, the Blueshirts welcome the Chicago Blackhawks to Madison Square Garden (7:00 P.M. ET, MSG).
Head coach David Quinn let his team know Sunday night, that he was not happy with their performance against the Columbus Blue Jackets. Not only did the Rangers lose the game, but they lost the game while conceding seven goals.
Tuesday night, Quinn got the response he was looking for. His Rangers were dominating the control of play and it showed on the scoreboard. They won the game in convincing fashion by the score of 6-2. Mika Zibanejad, Pavel Buchnevich and Tony DeAngelo each had two goals. In addition, they dominated the special teams portion of the game. They scored on all three of their powerplay opportunities, while the Hurricanes went scoreless on three opportunities.
“I thought we did some good things for sure,” said Quinn. “I thought our powerplay was really good tonight. I thought our penalty kill was really good. Combine that with good goaltending and you got a chance to win.”
“It was a good response from the guys,” Zibanejad said. “Thank God we had a game this quickly after that one (Columbus) and get a chance to redeem ourselves.”
20-year-old Ryan Lindgren made his NHL debut Tuesday night. He finished the game with three hits and three blocked shots.
“I was throwing my body around tonight; penalty kill, I thought I did well when I got out there…,” said Lindgren. “For the most part, I thought I played a solid game.”
“I thought he played well… I thought he did a good job” Quinn said.
Tonight, the Rangers welcome the Chicago Blackhawks to town. Chicago won the first game this season 4-1 with Pavel Buchnevich getting the lone Ranger goal. However, this is a very different Blackhawks team from the last time the Rangers saw them. Chicago relieved long-time head coach Joel Quennville of his coaching duties and hired 34-year-old Jeremy Colliton. They also traded former first round pick Nick Schmaltz, in-exchange for former first round picks Dylan Strome and Brendan Perlini.
The Blackhawks are coming off a tough defensive outing in New Jersey having conceded eight goals. Chicago will look to avoid allowing at least three goals for the eighth consecutive game. They have the second fewest points in the NHL with 41. Patrick Kane leads Chicago in points with 64 points (6th in NHL) in 47 games. Collin Delia starts in goal for the Blackhawks. Delia is 3-1-3 with a .932 save percentage. The 24-year-old goalie has seen an average of 40 shots between his seven starts.
The Rangers got positive news at practice as Kevin Hayes returned as a full participant. However, according to New York Post writer Larry Brooks, Hayes isn’t quite ready for tonight’s game and he won’t play until after the all-star break. The Blueshirts will likely stick to the same lineup as Tuesday night including Henrik Lundqvist in goal. Lundqvist has allowed two goals or fewer in eight of 13 career appearances against the Blackhawks.
Projected lineup:
Kreider-Zibanejad-Zuccarello
Chytil-Strome-Fast
Vesey-Howden-Namestnikov
McLeod-Nieves-Buchnevich
Skjei-McQuaid
Staal-DeAngelo
Lindgren – Shattenkirk
Lundqvist
