New York Rangers Hit Los Angeles with Two New Faces

Coming off of a 3-1 victory over the Colorado Avalanche on Sunday night, the Rangers will head into tonight’s contest against the Los Angeles Kings with confidence and two new faces in the lineup. Olli Jokinen, acquired late last night, will be relied upon by the Blueshirts to provide secondary scoring behind Marian Gaborik, who recorded a hat-trick in Sunday’s win at the Pepsi Center.

Brandon Prust will look to be a physical force in the bottom six, likely playing with Artem Anisimov and Erik Christensen. Both Jokinen (No. 12) and Prust (No. 8) will make their Rangers debuts tonight.

The Los Angeles Kings, much like the previous two opponents in the Avs and the Yotes, are a young up-and-coming hockey club that have propelled themselves to fifth place in the Western Conference by winning eight of their last ten. In the last meeting between New York and Los Angeles, the Rangers came out on top by the score of 4-2. Tonight will mark the second and last tilt with the Kings this season.


Rangers Projected Lineup

Prospal - Jokinen - Gaborik
Avery - Dubinsky - Callahan
Prust - Anisimov - Christensen
Drury - Boyle - Voros

Staal - Rozsival
Del Zotto - Girardi
Redden - Gilroy

Lundqvist

Scratches: Enver Lisin, Donald Brashear

Henrik Lundqvist will play in his first game since sitting out two straight due to the stomach flu this past weekend. Chad Johnson filled in for the all-star netminder in those two games and did quite well, picking up his first National Hockey League victory in the process. I fully expect Lundqvist to be well rested for this one, and when Hank is well rested, he is usually unbeatable. We will see how he fares against the offensive Kings.

In his first game with the Rangers, Olli Jokinen will center the first line with Marian Gaborik and Vinny Prospal. Jokinen is a known shooter so it will be interesting to see how Vinny Prospal’s game changes being that he has two players to distribute the puck to now. Head coach John Tortorella made it clear when he said that this is the way it will START, but not necessarily the way it will remain.

With Lisin and Brashear as the healthy scratches, I am going to go ahead and predict that Brandon Prust will be the third line left winger against the Kings tonight. He will likely be accompanied by Artem Anisimov and Erik Christensen, as Sean Avery has been upgraded based on the combinations during today’s morning skate. Well deserved at that.


Kings Projected Lineup
 
Richardson - Kopitar - Simmonds
Smyth - Stoll - Brown
Frolov - Handzus - Segal
Parse - Moller - Ivanans

Scuderi - Doughty
Johnson - Greene
O'Donnell - Drewiske

Quick

In-game tweets (updates) will be available at www.twitter.com/RangersTribune , followed by a shortened postgame analysis here on the blog due to the late (10:30) start time here in New York. Until then, get your rest because it is going to be a late one!

Also, here is John Tortorella's pregame interview courtesy of kings.nhl.com ,  in which the coach speaks about tonight's game as well as the recent trade.