Pregame: Gaborik-less Rangers Take on Predators in Only Meeting of the Season

Whether it is with Marian Gaborik or without Marian Gaborik, the New York Rangers will be hosting the Nashville Predators tonight at Madison Square Garden in the first and only meeting between the two clubs this season.

Both teams are desperate for wins heading into the Olympic break, making the chances of tonight’s contest being an all-out battle much higher. Plus the fact that these teams rarely see each other helps that as well.

The Rangers are currently at No. 10 in the East with 59 points, and have gone 3-7-0 in their last ten games. The Predators, on the other hand, rank seventh in the Western Conference, but have struggled as of late, only winning two of their last 10.

If you read my earlier post, it is said that Marian Gaborik is not expected to be in the lineup tonight against the Preds. Gaborik is suffering from a laceration of the thigh after having goaltender Henrik Lundqvist’s skate blade clip him when he leaped over Hank in a shootout drill.

We will not know officially if Gabs is in or not until right before the start of tonight’s tilt, as Jim Cerny of the Rangers Official Website let me know earlier this morning. I will have a blog post up later when the news is released.

Rangers Projected Lineup (Updated)

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

Staal - Rozsival
Redden - Gilroy
Del Zotto - Girardi

Lundqvist

Scratches: Marian Gaborik (thigh), Donald Brashear, Corey Potter

Henrik Lundqvist is coming off of his best overall performance of the season on Saturday against the New Jersey Devils. Lundqvist was nothing short of incredible in the 3-1 win, and like I said yesterday, this is always the time of year he plays his best hockey. There is always the threat of the Olympics burning him out, but for now, he must stay focused solely on the task at hand and that is the Predators.

There is no doubt the Rangers will be missing Gaborik if he should sit this one out. The Slovakian star was just beginning to heat up again, finding all sorts of ways to put the puck in the net. We have only seen the Rangers play twice this season without Gaborik, and both times the Blueshirts lost in regulation and struggled to generate much of anything.

The defense actually played a halfway decent game on Saturday as well. They did a fantastic job of clearing rebounds, leaving Lundqvist to reset himself after making a save. Far too often the D allows players to pick up their own rebounds, which means Lundqvist has zero time to react.

Predators Projected Lineup

Sullivan - Arnott - Hornqvist
Erat - Legwand - Ward
Tootoo - O'Reilly - Dupont
Jones - Smithson - Belak

Weber - Suter
Hamhuis - Sulzer
Bouillion - Klein

Ellis

In-game twitter updates available at twitter.com/RangersTribune , as well as any lineup updates prior to puck drop.
(Pictures courtesy of AP Photo and Getty Images)