Preview: Rangers rollercoaster twist into Ball Arena to face the Avs

Can the Rangers beat the Avs and string three wins together for just the third time this season?

After losing to the Jets last weekend, the Colorado Avalanche will search for the victory column again. At the same time, the Rangers hope to get a third consecutive victory—a sentence sort of flies in the face of each team’s success (or lack thereof) this season. The Rangers have notoriously struggled and underachieved so far this season. The Avalanche have overachieved if you consider their battles with injury and early-season netminding woes. Can Colorado get right? Are the Rangers back?

Colorado Avalanche

The Avalanche have been a team that has played down to their competition this season, which sets this game up as a potential trap. The Rangers have not performed as many pundits had presumed they would. That should present itself as an opportunity for the Avalanche, which has had some ugly losses to less formidable opponents lately. The Rangers, on paper, are plenty formidable, so perhaps the Avalanche can seize this opportunity and send the Rangers crashing back down to earth.

Cale Makar and Jonathan Drouin have a shot at scoring their 100th career goals tonight against the Rangers, so keep an eye on the two sharpshooters! I predict they do it tonight, and both tallies will come on the powerplay. It’s a powerplay that needs to find success again!

Projected Lineup:

Jonathan Drouin — Nathan MacKinnon — Mikko Rantanen
Artturi Lehkonen — Casey Mittelstadt — Ross Colton
Joel Kiviranta — Parker Kelly —Logan O’Connor
Jere Innala — Juuso Parssinen — Jason Polin

Devon Toews — Cale Makar
Samuel Girard — Josh Manson
Keaton Middleton — Sam Malinski

Note: The Avalanche will still be without Val Nichushkin this evening. Some call-ups have made that clear.

New York Rangers

The Rangers started the season with some angst in the narrative, with Igor Shesterkin’s contract looming over management and the team. They crossed that off the to-do list but still seem to be working through something in the room.

We’ve seen Kaapo Kakko move on from New York and find success in Seattle. The issue in New York might be the same as in Nashville: aging but proven talent is taking opportunities from younglings. That aging talent isn’t performing up to reputation, hurting them on the scoreboard and in terms of assets. That’s just my two cents.

If the Rangers aren’t careful, they will be sellers at the deadline with an 11.5 million dollar netminder. Yikes.

Projected Lineup:

Artemi Panarin — Vincent Trocheck — Alexis Lafrenière
Will Cuylle — Mika Zibanejad — Reilly Smith
Chris Kreider — Filip Chytil — Arthur Kaliyev
Adam Edstrom — Sam Carrick — Matt Rempe

Ryan Lindgren — Adam Fox
K’Andre Miller — Will Borgen
Urho Vaakanainen — Braden Schneider

Note: Chris Kreider and Filip Chytil have a “game-time decision” status ahead of tonight’s contest.

Goaltenders

Shesterkin vs. Blackwood tonight! Another great test for the Avalanche and their new look in net!