Rangers take on Bruins in Original Six matchup at MSG, Reverse Retro jersey (kakko)

kakko

Rangers take on Bruins in Original Six matchup at MSG, Reverse Retro jersey

By Jan Levine

Nov 3, 2022 • 4:16 pm

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The Rangers play the second of four straight home games in an Original Six matchup against the Bruins. Boston comes in after rallying from three goals down to defeat Pittsburgh, 6-5 in overtime on Tuesday. Hampus Lindholm had a goal and three assists on the Bruins' final four tallies as he continues to pick up the slack in Charlie McAvoy's absence. New York will be wearing their new Reverse Retro Liberty jersey for the first time this year tonight.

Lines:

Forwards: Kreider - Zibanejad - Kakko Panarin - Trocheck - Lafreniere Vesey - Goodrow - Gauthier Blais - Carpenter - Reaves

Defense: Lindgren - Fox Miller - Trouba Jones - Schneider

Shesterkin Halak

As seen, Igor Shesterkin will be between the pipes. This is 100% the right call. He wasn't overworked in the shutout win Tuesday, stopping 19 shots and coach Gerald Gallant and goaltending coach Benoit Allaire have done a good job of giving him the right rest. My projection is that Jaroslav Halak starts Sunday versus Detroit with Igor back between the pipes Tuesday against the Islanders. A good look by ESPN at Igor-Mania.

Vince Mercogliano ran two really good feature columns on Kakko Kaapo and Alexis Lafreniere in the last day. The Kakko piece centered more on his improved conditioning and performance on the ice, centered on his advanced metrics, while the Lafreniere piece was a look at the person, less so the player. Both, who I had tagged the glimmer twins for where they were selected and expectations compared to their output, have each taken major steps forward.

For Kakko, as Mercogliano noted, the output - three points (one goal and two assists) through 11 games played - does not stand out. But a look beyond the production tells a materially different story. "Kakko ranks second among Rangers' forwards who have appeared in every game with 62.82% xGF, according to Evolving Hockey, with the team averaging 40.48 shots on goal per 60 minutes while he's on the ice and allowing only 25.37. His 16 individual high-danger scoring chances at five-on-five also rank second, according to Natural Stat Trick." Those numbers are why Kakko looks to be on the cusp of taking a major step forward.

Brooks noted in his column today, where he discusses the use of the top-six and lack of ice time for the bottom trios: "Lafreniere and Kakko have also received significant bumps in ice time, going from 13:59 to 16:37 and 15:27 to 16:19, respectively." The use of the top-six, while heavy, is offset by the lighter load in terms of games played compared to number of days. Before the two back-to-backs in the past week, New York had played eight games in 20 calendar days; not a massive workload by any stretch. In addition, part of the heavier load for Zib, Kreider, Panarin and Trocheck is because of their power play usage, which is not that taxing, while Laf and Kakko are because of their move into the top-six.

When Filip Chytil is healthy and possibly the same for Vitali Kravtsov, Gallant may decide to siphon some time from the top-six and use on the third line. With the mixing and matching that Gallant and the team have done and current configuration of that trio, it's not that surprising that this line has not been heavily used. The same for the fourth line. Once Chytil and Kravtsov return, we could see that duo with Julien Gauthir with a fourth line of Barclay Goodrow with Jimmy Vesey and Sammy Blais. If these are the trios, Gallant might be willing - depending on game flow - to slightly lighten the load on the top-six. But that should not come at the expense of taking time from Laf and Kakko.

Reverse Retro Liberty Jersey:

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