Rangers-Penguins Pregame: New York Desperately Needs Rebound Effort

A big bounce back effort will be needed by the New York Rangers as they host the Pittsburgh Penguins tonight at Madison Square Garden.

On Saturday night, the Blue shirts were dominated in every aspect of the game and ended up being shut out 6-0 for the second time this year—this time by the Montreal Canadiens.

After major losses like this weekend’s, New York always seems to rebound with a win, but since we have seen the pattern over and over again, I do not think the routine 2-1 victory will be satisfying many.

The Rangers, who have now sank to seventh place in the Eastern Conference, are due for a lively game in which they control the tempo and actually come out and show some life. That has not been the case in the last two losses to the Habs and the Flyers.

However, it will not be an easy task as John Tortorella’s club is 0-3-0 against the Penguins this season and have not been able to net more than three goals past goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury in any of them. The likelihood of tonight’s contest being a scoring struggle is quite high.

As noted on the site earlier, Erik Christensen will join forward Ales Kotalik in the press box tonight, allowing Donald Brashear to enter the lineup for the first time in five games. As for Kotalik, this will be the sixth straight game that he will be a scratch.

Although Ales himself, in addition to his agent, has declined the rumor claiming a trade has been requested, the frequent scratches are making it more obvious that they may be trying to cover up.

Rangers Projected Lineup

Prospal - Dubinsky - Gaborik
Avery - Drury - Callahan
Higgins - Anisimov -Lisin
Brashear - Boyle - Voros

Staal - Rozsival
Del Zotto - Girardi
Redden - Gilroy

Lundqvist

Scratches: Erik Christensen, Ales Kotalik

After being chased from Saturday’s debacle against the Habs, Henrik Lundqvist will return in goal for tonight’s tilt.

Up until Hank’s allowance of four goals in just over a period in Montreal, the All-Star netminder was playing at the top of his game, only letting an average of two past him in the month of January.

We will see if being pulled will have an effect on Lundqvist’s confidence going into this one.

Marian Gaborik has just one goal in the last nine games and the Rangers are clearly struggling because of that. I am not saying that is the only reason the offense has gone downhill, besides the 14 goals in two games stretch last week, but it certainly is a big part of it.

Team defenses are keying in on Marian more often than he was used to earlier in the season, as most scouts that have half-a-brain can see that the Slovakian Scorer is the main source of offense on this declining club.

Sean Avery was probably the Rangers best player on Saturday, Thursday too, and this has seen him bumped up to the second line with Chris Drury and Ryan Callahan.

I actually liked the way in which Aves was developing chemistry with his fourth line mates, but I guess Tortorella believes he can get some production out of the pesky forward playing higher in the lineup.

Hopefully, he can use his mouth and other tactics to take players like Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin off of their games.

This leaves Chris Drury returning to center on the second trio, and Donald Brashear skating with Boyle and Voros on the fourth.

Torts would not give a clear explanation as to why Brash is in the lineup tonight, other than he does not want him sitting for too long. Personally, I think it is to gain a physical presence that was absent when Marian Gaborik went at it with Philadelphia’s Carcillo last week.

Penguins Projected Lineup
 
Dupuis - Crosby - Guerin
Fedotenko - Malkin - Talbot
Cooke - Staal - Kennedy
Rupp - Adams - Godard

Gonchar - Orpik
Letang - Eaton
McKee - Goligoski

Fleury

As an addition note, tonight's game will be televised nationally on VERSUS, and as always, in-game updates will be available at twitter.com/RangersTribune .