The Rangers certainly were better than they were Tuesday, though that is not saying much, in their 4-3 loss to the Maple Leafs on Thursday. John Tavares' return to New York was a successful one, as he notched a pair of goals and an assist for Toronto in their win. Mistakes were on full display again by the blueline, especially K'Andre Miller and Adam Fox, contributing heavily to the loss.
Saturday is Sam Rosen Day at MSG vs. Canucks with JT Miller reuniting with his former teammates. New York has not fared well in these types of games in the past. That better not be the case this year.
A few thoughts:
1) Fox and Miller: they didn't start the game together but were tried as a pair on offensive draws and then moved together. The duo worked as a unit at times earlier in the season. I am not about to say this can't work, but yesterday was an epic failure. As Steve Valiquette intimated, if you make the same mistakes over and over, maybe it's not a mistake so much as the core of who you are as a player. There were egregious ones, turnovers, lack of effort ones, beaten in the corner, and lazy ones, failure to get to the front of the net to prevent a deflection, Bobby McManus' goal. Whichever one you choose, none of them send a positive message .
Not a great period for K’Andre, who let McMann get a step on him on this goal and fell while pinching deep in the O zone on the first. But FWIW, he’s been their best D for the past month or so. Not sure I get the pile on when #NYR as a whole has been bad. pic.twitter.com/UoS90Vxzil
2) Lines for tomorrow:
Panarin - Trocheck - Laf
Cuylle - JT - Zib
Kreider - Carrick - Brodzinski
Othmann - Pärssinen - Rempe
Looks like Berard coming out tomorrow.
Miller - Borgen
Soucy - Fox
Jones - Schneider
de Haan - Vaakanainen
Spin the wheel d-pairings
3) Power Play changes per Vince Mercogliano (twitter embed is not working all the rime, yay)
PP1- Fox, Panarin, Trocheck, Laf and Kreider
PP2- Jones, JT, Brodzinski, Zibanejad and Cuylle
Mika Zibanejad was moved to the second unit with Alexis Lafreniere moved up. I don't know if Laf really did much to deserve the promotion. Basically, coach Peter Laviolette is in "the throw stuff against the wall and hope it sticks mode".
4) Standings: the fact that they are still in contention is amazing. Are we expecting a final game, late contest loss to seal their fate? Will it be Philly circa 2009 again?
So Montreal still holds the final WC spot, but now by a two-point margin over #NYR. And the #Isles move into a tie with the Rangers at 72 points.
Worst part for NYR is that both teams have *two* games in hand on them. https://t.co/bvzKHi2CHx
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