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Rangers face Golden Knights, Kravtsov likely a healthy scratch |
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The Rangers begin a two-game road trip tonight in Vegas. Both squads New York will face are dealing with material injuries, Colorado dealing with the brunt of them. The Golden Knights may be missing Jack Eichel, Alex Pietrangelo and Brett Howden tonight.
Alexis Lafreniere - Mika Zibanejad - Kakko Kaapo
Artemi Panarin - Filip Chytil - Barclay Goodrow
Chris Kreider - Vincent Trocheck - Jimmy Vesey
Sammy Blais - Jonny Brodzinski -Julien Gauthier/Ryan Carpenter/Vitali Kravtsov
Coach Gerard Gallant has apparently decided to anger the entire Rangers’ fan base with his lineup tonight. On the bright side, Alexis Lafreniere and Kakko Kaapo are remaining with Mika Zibanejad on the reconstituted first line. But on the flip side, rather than keeping Vitali Kravtsov with Artemi Panarin and Filip Chytil, who looks to be retuning to the lineup tonight after missing two games with his injury, clearly it was more important to move Barclay Goodrow back to that unit.
How the heck can you get a true sense of what Kravtsov can bring? What did he do the last few games that evidenced he should be moved down or benched? It’s infuriating to see this change made with no rational reason for it. What’s the point of putting Goodrow on that line rather than in a bottom six role where he is better suited? If Gallant wanted to pave the way for a possible dismissal if the trip does not go well, his lineup decision today will certainly aid that path. But hey, at least he is going down sticking to his guns.
The defense should be the same as Monday with Jacob Trouba and K’Andre Miller remaining together after their brief separation. This means that Libor Hajek and Braden Schneider are a duo while Adam Fox and Ryan Lindgren were never separated. Igor Shesterkin will be between the pipes.
New York Rangers Blogger • 
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