New York Rangers Look to Bounce Back Against Florida Panthers

The Florida Panthers are for real and are a team that shouldn’t be taken lightly. A few months ago, Dave Talon was severely criticized for taking a page out of Glen Sather’s playbook by “overpaying” players to come to Florida. He also was questioned after acquiring some of his former Blackhawk players from the 2010 Stanley Cup team.

Major additions to the Panthers include veteran defenseman Ed Jovanovski, Tomas Fleischmann, Brian Campbell, Kris Versteeg, Jose Theodore and Tomas Kopecky.

Most of these additions have reinvigorated the Panther offense. Versteeg leads the team with 25 points (11 goals and 14 assists), Fleischmann has 20 points (nine goals, 11 assists) and Campell has 18 points (two goals and 16 assists). These players help take some of the burden off Stephen Weiss.

With that in mind, the Rangers are squaring off against a team that is much different than last year. They can’t simply look at this game as a gimme. The Blueshirts are coming off a streak-snapping loss against the Montreal Canadiens.

The Rangers looked flat-out pathetic and it was one of their worst performances in recent memory. They had no legs, no drive and couldn’t score a goal to save their lives. Martin Biron had a rocky outing in goal but the team really did nothing to support him.

At the end of the day, this loss should not be beaten to death. What must be realized is the team is still in a good position in the division and conference. Sometimes when a team goes on an elongated win streak, the desire and reinforcement of a good win dissipates. The brutal loss should only fire up the Blueshirts and make them hungry to move forward.

The Rangers practiced today in Florida. Here are some tweets that summarize some of the major changes:

JimCerny Jim Cerny  #NYR working on PP this morning with top unit today consisting of: Richards & Stralman at points, Callahan, Dubinsky, Christensen up front
JimCerny Jim Cerny  Brad Richards on #NYR PP: "the point of emphasis is to score more goals...but our hunger level has to be higher out there"
JimCerny Jim Cerny  Torts says he's unsure of lineup, but wanted to see Stralman work on PP today: "that's one of his strengths so wanted to get him work there"
JimCerny Jim Cerny  Richards: "Want to nip the losses and not allow them to grow...tough stretch of games coming up here...we want wins"
JimCerny Jim Cerny  Torts: "One of the things we emphasize is getting momentum back on your side...that's what we have do after Montreal"

The power-play unit is certainly an interesting tidbit of information. It seems like eons ago that Strålman was signed to a contract. He is a player who could certainly invigorate the power play. 39 of his career 72 points have come with the man advantage.

The fact that Dubinsky, Callahan and Christensen occupy the forward slots is also puzzling. At the bare minimum, Stepan or Gáborík should be involved on the first unit. They are skilled players who can score goals and generate offense. Hopefully this was just one of Torts’ mad scientist experiments.

Here are the lines that are expected to go out against the Panthers:

Artem Anisimov | Derek Stepan | Marián Gáborík

Brandon Dubinsky | Brad Richards (A) | Ryan Callahan (C)

Ruslan Fedotenko | Erik Christensen | Brandon Prust

Sean Avery | Brian Boyle | Andre Deveaux 

Ryan McDonagh | Dan Girardi (A)

Michael Del Zotto | Michael Sauer

**Jeff Woywitka | **Steve Eminger 

Henrik Lundqvist

**—Subject to change if Anton Strålman is in lineup

Needless to say, this is a big game for the Blueshirts. They are squaring off against a big-time opponent and they will look to pick up valuable points.

What will the final score of the game be? Will the Rangers have an effective power play? Do you feel the Panthers are for real?

Leave a comment or question in the section below to get the conversation started.

Tom Urtz Jr. is an NHL Featured Columnist and New York Rangers Featured Columnist. For NHL news, updates and alerts about players: