The Blueshirts, off a pair of wins over the Red Wings, kick off a stint of four straight games at MSG today taking on Dallas, followed by Toronto, Buffalo and Boston. Chris Kreider is a game-time decision after getting kneed in the head Saturday. If Kreider can’t go, Phil Di Giuseppe may dress for him, resulting in a shuffling of the lines.
David Quinn Pre-Game:
Coach Quinn on playing smart hockey, lineup decisions, Kreider’s status and more ahead of tonight’s matchup vs. Dallas: pic.twitter.com/p5LLi7esGw
— New York Rangers (@NYRangers) February 3, 2020
Potential lines tonight: Kreider-Zibanejad-Buchnevich Panarin-Strome-Fast Howden-Chytil-Kakko Lemieux-McKegg-Smith
Lindgren-Trouba Staal-DeAngelo Skjei-Fox
If Kreider is out, Kakko might move up to the top line or coach David Quinn might try Brendan Lemieux again. Di Giuseppe or Michael Haley would dress for Kreider. None of these are ideal, but I would keep Panarin-Strome-Kakko together so one line stays intact.
Kreider sitting would likely be more for precautionary reasons than anything else unless he had concussion symptoms that has yet to be reported. The balance of the current and the future, especially keeping all the trade options open, is what lays ahead of the front office. Each person’s view on how best to proceed varies, as expected.
On the blue line, the pairings that started Friday and Saturday remain intact. Quinn spoke highly of Skjei in his pre-game conference, saying this was the best he had seen him play since he became coach. I don’t think I am going to go there but I do think Skjei has been pretty good the last 10 or so games, as I wrote last week.
Henrik Lundqvist, who notched his first shutout of the season and first since 2017 on Saturday, gets the nod again tonight. Given how good he looked against Detroit, going with him between the pipes makes sense. But as Quinn also said, the organization is still figuring out how to deploy all three goalies, which is not the ideal.