Fairytale of New York: Preview of the Blackhawks at the Rangers
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Fairytale of New York: Preview of the Blackhawks at the Rangers

Posted on by Amelia Pressman

A pair of teams without many positive aspects of their current situation meet at Madison Square Garden on Monday night when the Blackhawks visit the New York Rangers.

The Rangers are in something of a spiral: Despite sitting in a wild-card spot for the playoffs, they have won just three of their last 10 games and lost seven of their last nine. Their most recent loss is fresh: a 7-5 loss to the Seattle Kraken. It was back and forth until halftime as the Kraken scored five straight goals between the second and third periods to take a 6-3 lead. The Rangers pulled within a point late, but the Kraken held on and added an empty-net goal for good measure. Vincent Trocheck and K’Andre Miller each had a goal and an assist, while Reilly Smith, Filip Chytil and Alexis Lefreniere contributed the other goals. Jonathan Quick had a surprisingly poor game this season, allowing six goals on 21 shots. Yikes.

This type of play is nothing new for the Rangers this season, as they are quite poor defensively and rank in the bottom half of the league in several categories, such as shot attempt percentage (48.72 percent, 22nd) and expected goal percentage league (49.55 percent, 20th). The latter is high because Rangers are great at generating quality (2.79 expected goals per 60, 4th) but poor at suppressing it (2.84 per 60, 28th).

The problems on the ice are one of the reasons why the Rangers fired their previous captain, Jacob Trouba, on Friday. New York had been trying to move Trouba since last offseason for salary cap reasons and to clear space for its younger defensemen, but he had a no-movement clause in his contract until July, which he exercised to prevent the trade. Well, the NMC led to a 15-team no-trade clause, and an agreement was eventually reached with Anaheim – although it remained a mess and the former captain was saddled with threats of being placed on waivers.

As for the Ranger players still on the team, the squad isn’t without talent — at least offensively. Our old friend Artemi Panarin is still a star and has already scored 15 goals and 19 assists in 26 games this season. Also this season, four players under the age of 25 are well positioned, at least offensively: Will Cuylle with 21 points (9 G, 12 A), Lafrenière with 20 points (9 G, 11 A) and Kaapo Kakko with 14 points (4 G, 10 A), all in 26 games, while Chytil has 10 (5 G, 5 A) in 19 games. Veterans Mika Zibanejad, Trocheck, Smith and Krieder round out the top nine with at least 0.5 points per game.

Adam Fox is also making a rapid contribution on defense with 22 assists in 26 games, but he is the only defender to do so. Fox is still in the formidable top four along with Miller, Ryan Lindgren and Braden Schneider, but the other three aren’t looking for points like the No. 1 seed.

Since the Rangers played on Sunday night, there was no morning skate on Monday. Her lines from the Kraken game were the following:

The only known change is that new dad Igor Shesterkin will be in net against Chicago. He has just a .908 save percentage in 19 starts this season, but recently signed a contract that will make him the NHL’s highest-paid goalie next season.

As for the Blackhawks, unfortunately the team’s first game under interim coach Anders Sorensen was a 4-2 loss to the Winnipeg Jets on Saturday, extending their losing streak to five games. It was a pretty close battle until the Jets scored the game-winning goal midway through the third period. Alex Vlasic and Alec Martinez scored the goals for Chicago, while Connor Bedard picked up a point and has a total of four points (1 G, 3 A) in his last five games. However, that last point was just a secondary assist on the power play, so the 5-on-5 performance still counts for him.

Petr Mrazek made four saves before leaving the game with a groin injury midway through the first period, and Arvid Soderblom made 21 saves on 24 shots as a substitute. It’s not surprising that the Blackhawks lost, considering the team has only had one practice under the new coach and the Jets are a top team in the league, but there is hope that something positive can come out of it – and be it just a different voice in the room at the individual player level.

Mrazek wasn’t the only player injured in the Jets game, as Alec Martinez sustained something to his neck. Sorsensen gave the following schedules for both players:

Due to these injuries, the Blackhawks recalled Drew Commesso and Kevin Korchinski from the Rockford IceHogs on Sunday to face the team in New York:

This comes at a good time for Korchinski, who got off to a bit of a slow start to the AHL season but has been playing some pretty excellent hockey for the IceHogs of late. The Blackhawks probably would have liked to see a longer period of this improved play before the draft, but it’s a good reward and will allow them to gauge his true progress. However, it is unknown whether he will play against the Rangers.

(UPDATED): Korchinski is expected to play in New York tonight:

The other player transaction on Sunday was the Blackhawks placing Joey Anderson on waivers:

Anderson cleared waivers on Monday afternoon, giving the Blackhawks a 30-day window to send him to the AHL without having to go through the waiver process again. This news corresponds with increasing excitement that a Frank Nazar sighting with Chicago is imminent. At the time of writing this preview, there was no move to put Nazar in the lead ahead of the Rangers game, but that could still change.

Ignoring the Nazar-shaped elephant in the room, the Blackhawks will likely field the same lines they did at practice on Sunday. Bedard’s linemates were shuffled slightly again, replacing Teuvo Teravainen with Ilya Mikheyev.

Personally, I’m not a big fan of the merry-go-round continuing for Bedard’s wingers, and while Mikheyev has been much better offensively in games recently in terms of underlying metrics, he isn’t producing consistent results. Sorensen seems to think Mikheyev’s behavior in transition and improved offensive play can help Bedard, so we’ll have to see whether he’s right or not.

Story from the tape

Blackhawks — Stats — ranger
44.40% (32nd) – 5 against 5 Corsi For – 48.72% (22nd)
44.08% (30th) – 5v5 Expected Goals for – 49.55% (20th)
2.41 (31st) – Goals per game – 3.27 (t-9)
3.19 (T-24) – Goals conceded per game – 3.04 (T-17)
44.2% (30th) – Faceoffs – 54.1% (3rd)
23.9% (10th) – Powerplay – 23.2% (11th)
82.1% (8th) – Penalty shootout – 85.5% (2nd)

Here’s how to watch

When: 6pm CT
Where: Madison Square Garden, New York
TV: NHLN, CHSN (How to Watch)
Web stream: N/A
Radio: WGN 720

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