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New York-New Jersey renew tunnel/bridge rivalry at MSG tonight |
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The Rangers take on the Devils tonight at MSG. New York was blown out by New Jersey in their first two matchups and faces a team that has lost four of their last five. It gets no easier after tonight’s contest for the Blueshirts, as the team heads to Vegas on Saturday and Colorado on Tuesday.
Rangers lineup vs.Devils:
Panarin-Trocheck-Lafrenière
Cuylle-Zibanejad-Smith
Kaliyev-Brodzinski-Berard
Edström-Carrick-Rempe
Lindgren-Fox
Miller-Borgen
Vaakanainen-Schneider
Shesterkin
Quick
Scratches:
Healthy: Jones, Vesey
Injured: Chytil (upper body, day to day)
IR: Kreider (upper-body injury)
Igor Shesterkin returns to action after missing four games while Matt Rempe has completed his eight game suspension and will be in the lineup. (Over/under on Kurtis McDermid playing and a fight ensuing?). Arthur Kaliyev makes his Blueshirts’ debut after being claimed on waivers the other day from LA while Jimmy Vesey will be a healthy scratch, joining Zac Jones on the sidelines. Vesey and Jones are both clearly at risk of being traded.
Chris Kreider remains out, joined by Filip Chytil, who is day to day with an upper body injury. If there is good news, it’s that Chytil skated this am before practice. But the term upper body and Chytil joined together raises chills for all of us. Kreider’s trade value has plummeted due to his poor season, but more important, the back issues that landed him on IR. Why the team tagged him as a healthy scratch last week as opposed to saying he was injured is beyond me.
New York is 2-1-1 in their last four games. While there have been some positive signs, the issues that created the 4-15-0 stretch remain. Tonight against New Jersey will be another strong test to see if any the lessons learned over this stretch have stuck or if we will see what we saw versus Dallas that resulted in a pair of blown leads and overtime loss.
New York Rangers Blogger • 
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