The Rangers kick off their Western Canada trip Wednesday against the Canucks. A similar trip last season helped jumpstart the Rangers campaign, which ultimately resulted in a President's Trophy. New York comes in off a solid start-to-finish effort in their 4-1 win over the Senators on Sunday while the Canucks beat the Sabres, aided by a Radim Vrbata hat trick, 4-1 on Monday.
In 2014, facing the same opponents in the same order, New York defeated the Canucks, 5-1, shutout the Oilers, 2-0, and then capped the trip by beating the Flames, 5-2. This season, the Rangers enter the trip 4-5-1 in their last 10, but playing much better their last three games after scuffling for a while. Vancouver still holds the third spot in the Pacific but the Ducks are closing quickly with a long way to go in the season.
The lineup changes that were required due to Derek Stepan's rib injury, Emerson Etem's illness and the team's general ineffectiveness will remain intact Wednesday. Derick Brassard, who scored twice Sunday, will once again center Mats Zuccarello and Kevin Hayes. Oscar Lindberg, who looked very good Sunday, continuing his strong rookie campaign, will be between Chris Kreider; coming into tonight's game off his best effort in weeks, and Rick Nash. Dominic Moore, who won 13-of-14 face offs Sunday, will center a third line of J.T. Miller and Jesper Fast, and Tanner Glass and Viktor Stalberg will flank Jarret Stoll. Etem, who is now healthy, will be scratched again, serving as the 13th forward, though he could get into one of the next two games.
Most encouraging lately has been the play of Keith Yandle. That recent uptick corresponds with the insertion of Dylan McIlrath into the lineup, which the past few games was due to Kevin Klein's oblique injury. Larry Brooks wrote today and it's something I had noted a few times before that McIlrath's ability to handle the more defensive aspects of the game has enabled Yandle to play to his strengths offensively. With Klein out at least another 10 days or so, McIlrath gets to solidify his spot in the rotation. If he continues to play well, using his size to be physical and improving own zone play, it will be even more difficult to remove him from that pairing and lineup when Klein returns.
If the Rangers play as they did against the Islanders and Senators, they should be able to handle the Canucks and Ryan Miller. A flat start as they had against Colorado and it could be a long night. AV, who is coaching in his 999th game and given his past job as Vancouver coach, knows the Sedins quite well, so long for McDonagh to be on the ice as much as possible when the Twins are, though Vancouver has the last change and will try and get them on against the Staal-Boyle pairing. In addition, Alex Edler is the one to watch on the Canucks' blue line, as he is having a fine rebound campaign.
One more thing, the talk of firing AV is ridiculous. While we may not always agree with every move he makes and disagree with what we think is blind loyalty, he got the team to the Cup Finals two years ago and took a squad with half the defense injured to the cusp of another appearance of they had won the third period of Game 7. Enjoy what's there rather than always searching for what's believed to be the next best thing or a different option. The grass isn't always greener on the other side.
Rangers-Canucks, 10pm Wednesday.