The Rangers kick off their first of three games over the next 11 days against their Midtown Tunnel rivals, the Islanders, with a contest at MSG on Tuesday. The meeting is the third between the two teams this season, with the Islanders defeating the Rangers 5-3 on Dec. 20 and Blueshirts earning a 3-2 win on October 29. Of course, when these two teams meet, records and streaks mean little. That said, the Rangers come in 11-3-1 in their last 15, 7-2-1 in their last 10 and having won six of their last seven, including a 4-1 win over the Flyers on Sunday. The Islanders rallied from 3-1 down with two goals in the third to defeat Philly 4-3 in a shootout Monday, upping their mark to 7-3 in their last 10, as they have gotten back into the playoff race in the Metropolitan Division and Eastern Conference.
The Islanders are of course led by their top line of John Tavares, Thomas Vanek and Kyle Okposo. Tavares (Canada) and Vanek (Austria) are on Olympic teams while Okposo was one of the bigger snubs and should be on Team USA. Okposo has five goals and four assists in the nine games since the snub, including a Gordie Howe hat trick and game-winning goal in the shootout Monday. Tavares has 21 points, including 10 goals, his last 13 games while Vanek has points in 15 of 16 games, notching seven goals and 14 assists in that span. What has helped propel the Islanders lately is the play of Brock Nelson, as the third line center, and Calvin de Haan, who has picked up the slack with Travis Hamonic joining Lubomir Visnovsky on the sidelines with a concussion. With Evgeni Nabokov still sidelined with a quad injury, Kevin Poulin has assumed the goaltending duties, but Anders Nilsson gave him a breather and got the win Monday, so expect to see Poulin on Tuesday.
New York's recent rise has coincided with - or more likely, a result of - improved play on the blue line from Dan Girardi, who once again looks like the one-half of the Block Ness Twins he was the past several seasons. Add in scoring from Rick Nash, seven goals his last eight games, four balanced lines, spurred by scoring from Richards, Zuccarello, Brassard, Callahan and a solid forecheck,thanks to the Carcillo Effect and a hot Henrik Lundqvist, and it explains a lot of the hot streak. One other major factor has been the performance of the special teams. The Rangers have scored a power play goal in seven of the past nine games and 12 of the last 17. After bemoaning the lousy man advantage for so many years, now rather than being surprised when they score, we are surprised when they don't. The team ranks seventh overall in the NHL (26-for-172, 20.9%) and tied for 19th at home (16-for-94, 17%). Short-handed, they are ninth overall in the NHL (126-for-150, 84%) and 11th at home (61-for-73, 83.6%). The Rangers' combined PP and PK of 104.9% ranks fourth in the league, helping drive the recent hot streak.
One unsung aspect that can't be overlooked is the steady hand of coach Alain Vigneault. Early in the season, due to the team's struggles, there was calls for AV's head. Despite psychologically knowing that a team takes time to learn a new system and gel together, when the Rangers got off to such a horrible start, all the knowledge went out the window and the thirst for his head on a platter and his body out the door took over. It would have been easy for him to go through a full blown panic, make massive changes and re-jigger things, but he didn't. He did make some subtle moves, switching the D coverage in the Rangers' zone, which is now somewhat of a combination man-to-man and zone look, shifting up the lines and using Cam Talbot more. But once the team was comfortable with the style and started to play better - you could argue it was a chicken-or-egg question as to which came first - and got healthy, he went back to playing Nash with Stepan and adding in Kreider, then rolling four lines, the same six d-men and relying on Lundqvist, resulting in the current hot streak. Of course the bright lights of Broadway are called that for a reason. If AV continues to win, they will be spotlights, if the Rangers slump, they will return to being klieg lights.
RANGERS
Kreider – Stepan – Nash Hagelin – Richards – Callahan Pouliot – Brassard – Zuccarello Boyle – Moore – Carcillo
McDonagh – Girardi Staal – Stralman Moore – Del Zotto
Cam Talbot (starting) Henrik Lundqvist (out ill)
(Updated: Lundqvist is out with an illness, but is slated to be the backup, with Talbot getting the bid, if I was a conspiracy theorist, I would wonder if this had anything to do with the tweak he had in his back/leg at the end of the Capitals win, but since I am not, I will go with what's been released)
Injuries: Dorsett
Big game between two hot, divisional rivals, should be a fun one. Let's Go Rangers!!!