The Pittsburgh Penguins might be disappointed that they were unable to come away with two points after playing well against the Buffalo Sabres on Saturday night, but they’ll have to forget about it quickly. Tonight they host one of the hottest teams in the NHL, the New York Rangers.

The Rangers are one of the best goal scoring teams early on this season. Their four line scoring approach is paying huge dividends. They bailed on their Tanner Glass experiment and signed some free agent outcasts like Brandon Pirri and Michael Grabner. The decision to do so has worked out great.

The Rangers currently have 10 players that have a even-strength points per 60 above 2.0. That is the threshold which is considered to be a top line player. While it isn’t likely they finish the year with all 10 players staying above that threshold it does speak to the fact that so far the team is scoring goals in bunches. Here is that list



That’s really incredible production. As a team the Rangers lead the NHL in even-strength shooting percentage at 12.5%. The next best team is Columbus at 9.73%. To say the Rangers are on a hot streak would be understating it.

The scary part about the Rangers success so far this year has been the fact that Lundqvist has been fairly average with an even-strength save percentage of 92.3%. History speaks to him playing above that clip so even when the Rangers shooting percentage eventually regresses it is likely that Hank’s percentage will go up.

That said the Rangers are vulnerable. They haven’t been a good possession team. Eventually that PDO drug wears off and you have to rely on controlling the game flow. That hasn’t happened lately.

The Rangers have now been out-attempted in shots at 5v5 in 8 straight games and 9 of their last 10.

— Hevin Kayes (@lackinggrit) November 21, 2016

New York was dealt a blow last night on the injury front. Mika Zibanejad crashed feet first into the boards like night and broke his fibula. He is going to miss 6-8 weeks. He was playing really good for the Rangers and while the Rangers have forward depth his presence will be missed.

The Penguins will also be missing a forward tonight. Chris Kunitz has been placed on injured reserve. Replacing him will be highly anticipated prospect Jake Guentzel. I spoke yesterday about how well Guentzel has been playing in the AHL and how his potential success can alter the Penguins roster plans moving forward. For now, he will probably slot in on the wing. In the future he could potentially slot in as a scoring center on the third line. He is a candidate to replace either Nick Bonino or Chris Kunitz long term. Kunitz’s injury has been described by Mike Sullivan as ‘week to week’ so Guentzel should be provided a decent opportunity to acclimate himself to the NHL.

I would throw Guentzel right into the fire with either Sidney Crosby or Evgeni Malkin and it appears as though that is what will happen

Hagelin-Crosby-Sheary
Guentzel-Malkin-Kessel
Wilson-Bonino-Rust
Kuhnhackl-Cullen-Fehr

Marc-Andre Fleury played great Saturday night and will be rewarded with his second consecutive start. He was the first goalie off the ice this morning.

Thanks for reading!

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