Rangers vs. Penguins
7:00pm, CONSOL Energy
Center
Rangers Record: 18-13-1
Penguins Record: 21-9-2
The Blueshirts will be looking to carry over their scoring
touch tonight against the red hot Penguins who had won twelve straight before
falling to the Flyers last night.
The big story coming out of Ranger camp is that Drury will
be back in the lineup tonight and see his first action since October 15th.
It will be very interesting to see how the lines will be effected as the
current lineup has been playing well. Early thoughts have been that Drury will
be paired with Avery and either Christensen or White.
Another huge aspect of tonight’s game also wears a C, and
this is the red hot Crosby who is riding a 19 game point streak. From a Rangers
perspective this means Staal and Girardi must have one hell of a game. In the Washington games Staal
clearly outplayed Ovie and it translated into a very frustrating day for number
8. So depending on how Pittsburgh
manages Crosby and Malkin, these shutdown D-men must elevate their game whether
they play together or on different pairings.
The goalie matchup will be Marc-Andre Fleury for Pitt. and Henrik
Lundqvist for the Rangers.
Over the last ten games between these two rivals Hanks
numbers have been anything but stellar with a record of 2-7-1 with a 3.48 GAA.
So hopefully the Rangers can put together a strong team
defensive effort and the return of Captain Chris to break this 10 game regulation
winless streak against the leagues top team.
