NY Rangers Game 54: Rangers vs Pittsburgh

The Rangers look to make up ground in the wild card race tonight against a truly shorthanded Penguins team missing both Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin. Rickard Rakell, a winger, will play top line center for the Penguins tonight, and this should honestly be a blood bath, assuming the Rangers show up. The Penguins weren’t a good team with Crosby and Malkin in the lineup, let alone out of the lineup. This is a lot of words to say tonight is a trap game.

The Rangers are still without both Urho Vaakanainen and Adam Edstrom, though they won’t miss a beat with Zac Jones and Jimmy Vesey in the lineup. The Blueshirts have a chance to move past the Isles tonight with a win and an Isles loss. Even without an Isles loss, a win puts the Rangers within 2 points of both Boston and Columbus with games in hand. It would put them three points behind Detroit for the final wild card spot as well.

Penguins Lines

Anthony Beauvillier-Rickard Rakell-Bryan Rust
Michael Bunting-Cody Glass-Danton Heinan
Matthew Nieto-Kevin Hayes-Phil Tomasino
Bokondji Imama-Blake Lizotte-Noel Acciari

PO Joseph-Kris Letang
Matt Grzelcyk-Erik Karlsson
Ryan Graves-Vincent Desharnais

Alex Nedeljkovic gets the start.

Rangers Lines

Artemi Panarin-JT Miller-Mika Zibanejad
Reilly Smith-Vincent Trocheck-Alexis Lafreniere
Chris Kreider-Jonny Brodzinski-Will Cuylle
Jimmy Vesey-Sam Carrick-Matt Rempe

Ryan Lindgren-Adam Fox
K’Andre Miller-Will Borgen
Zac Jones-Braden Schneider

Igor Shesterkin gets the start.

Crazy Prediction: The Rangers get 7 goals.

Game time is 7pm.