NY Rangers (26-24-4) vs Columbus Blue Jackets (26-21-8)
• 08 Feb 2025 19:00 EST
• Nationwide Is On Your Side Arena, Columbus
• TV: FDSNOH, MSG •
Is the window opening or closing? That is the question the NYR must ask themselves as they prepare for a tilt tonight in Columbus against the Blue Jackets. Not aware of many distractions in Columbus so hopefully they will have focused on the correct answer!
In news to only amplify the loss to the Pens last night, Shesterkin is expected to be out one to two weeks with an UBI, thought to be a hand injury from a scrum netfront. Well, a fair number of people had been wanting Quick to get more games … but after tonight the Rangers do not return to play until 22 Feb against the Sabres in Buffalo. Four Nation something or other tournament (It all sounds wonderful but not in the middle of a season with so many teams in the hunt. One injury could have a huge effect on a team’s chances. Play it post season, if at all considering how much salaries will be going up.) The Rangers have recalled Dylan Garand from Hartford to backup Quick tonight.
The NYR are 5-4-1 their last 10, with the last a loss against the Penguins last night and previously two wins coming against BOS and VGK. The BJs are 4-4-2, most recently a three game skid against Utah (OTL), BUF and DAL. So both teams should be desperate to right the ship tonight (right?)
Line-up wise: Quick (3.04 GAA, 0.901 SV%) in net for the Rangers who will likely the same line-up as Friday, unless Vaakanainen returns from being ill in which case Jones may sit again. Elvis (2.96 GAA, 0.895 SV%) will be in the house for Columbus. Columbus, for reasons I presume are related to five players listed as injured, will go with 11 forwards and 7 defensemen for a second game in a row.
The refs tonight are TJ Duxmore (702 GP) and Trevor Hanson (no relation, 711 GP). Be aware that Hanson calls a lot of penalties, more so on the visitors.
Keys to a Ranger victory: Look at the standings before taking the ice and do the right thing.
On this date in history: In 1997, Mark Messier scored his 19th career hat trick to lead the NYR over the NYI. This was the final hat trick of his career (!) and, surprisingly, the first one scored by a member of the Rangers at Nassau Coliseum during this 25-year rivalry..
Speculative NYR lineup
Forwards
1st line ⊳ Panarin ⋄ Miller ⋄ Zibanejad
2nd line ⊳ Smith ⋄ Trocheck ⋄ Lafrenière
3rd line ⊳ Kreider ⋄ Brodzinski ⋄ Cuylle
4th line ⊳ Vesey ⋄ Carrick ⋄ Rempe
Defensemen
1st pair ⊳ Lindgren ⋄ Fox
2nd pair ⊳ Miller ⋄ Borgen
3rd pair ⊳ Vaakanainen ⋄ Schneider
Goalies
Starter ⊳ Quick
Backup ⊳ Shesterkin
Healthy scratch: D Jones F Kaliyev
Injured: Edström (LBI)
In the Cooler: none
Long-term IR: none
135 responses to “It’s Go Time!”
Wildcard race is race involving inept or injured teams
We keep getting help
Lgr! Im trough wit dese guys!
Doesn’t matter which goalie starts it’s all a crap shoot which version shows up anyway!
Joe is being very polite with that description of last night’s game
First line Vesey. this season has officially jumped the shark?
Catching a lot of breaks re: teams in front of our sexy boys. This is a yuge game.
Rangers provide Thrills, chills, oil spills, gas grills, writing wills, pay your bills, swallow your pills, Lofgren Nils, Stephen Stills, fish gills, climbing hills…
Biyeeeeeeeeeee
Losing the last two before the break would be a huge downer. Let’s see if that motivates them to compete harder.
No cannon blasts tonight O High O.
Let’s Go Rangers!
Elvis has left the rink
First shift is already embarrassing nonsense – danger zone!
Wow Kaliyev beat him clean
Nice wraparound that was cool
Preach, Joe
LGR! FIRE DRURY!
Linddy looks already like the downed pilot…
Trivia just gets stupider.
Better start. More attention to detail. More enthusiasm and a nice goal by the recently discarded Kaliyev.
Nice little pass by Rempe there
Not burying any of these opportunities may come back to bite them in the tuchus.
Don’t put Smith in the shootout.
Ottawa up by one 🤦🏼♂️
Exciting game so far….rangers need to stop passing the puck to no one….
Quick, then Miller with big saves in that scramble. D looking rough at times, going to need more than one goal.
Quick looking like Shesterkin out there. Defense looking like last night.
Who is Kandre covering there?
Great period. I’m going back to the watching the panther game
Defense really showing up tonight.
VC is Roberto Duran on skates. Hands of stone
Goodbye playoffs
Just no interest in back checking
Ahhh…..those missed opportunities. So much for the good start.
LOL further proves why I’ve given up on this joke of a roster and why most of you have too. Get rid of K’Andre Moron.
7 shots to 1
Since
2 shots to 8
All of the Rangers should be required to wear the Gamesters of Triskelion collar of obience. The fans should have the control to issues shocks as required.
Panarin, the giveaway master
Quickie bails out JT, who’s doing what-the-hell in his own zone. This team can’t wake up, and now their worst period coming up, the long change.
🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮
When the rangers lose this one, they’ll need at least 6 points, just to tie for the last wildcard.
Will Valley Kat have the blow torch lit?
A Crysby and Malkinless team scored 3 on us in the third at home.
That tracks as a minimum of 5 for Columbus.
The Rangers can win this game. Will they?
When the in studio color guy takes a knife to your play you know things are bad
Beezle: Why, yes…yes, he does.
This is when Mika mouse errr Kreider errrrr Foxy errrrr JT needs to put the team on his shoulders and bring it home…
It’s getting hard to watch these guys again.
And I’m watching intermittently on my tablet at a panther game.
He ripped Laffo Busto pretty good.
The only one big enough to carry these slackers around is Rempe. Time for the Rempe-trick.
IDK I think I might have prefered to see KAM as 1R and Vesey play 2nd pair
Do you get the feeling that No player really cares. This is not fun watching these egotistical ingrates..
Cullye must have pissed off the coach to get his new linemates
Rempe will tie it up 2-2
Well that shot hasn’t worked in the age of a dog, once.
I meant zbad
Trocheck is lucky he wasn’t the only one getting a penalty there.
Also…
BOOM ZIKA LALA!
Nice pass Fox. Way to finish Mika.
Meeka?!
Meeks Mouse gets the cheese
Assuming they need ~40 more points to get in they need to win 20 more games. After tonight they have 27 games left. If they lose they will need to go 20-7 the rest of the way. That’s not happening. After a while you have to accept that they aren’t that good. They are bunched in the second tier of teams and they are getting older and not better. The window has closed.
Beez –
LW Kreider doing his best Panarin in and out of the zone. Kaliyev falls down. Two Jackets in the slot. Where should KAM be?
https://i.ibb.co/5h0Q0ptN/K-Johnson-goal.jpg
Lighten took too much time to settle that puck
Kreider finally has more assists than Dustin Wolf.
Good keepin by Lindgren
Was that stanley cup winner jack Johnson standing up Tro at the blue line like a brick wall?
I really meant it the other way around. KAM is a better winger than Vesey, saw it in that one shift where he jumped in.
Nothing personal against VC but if you’re putting him as your first line winger, you really should be calling up someone from Hartford for a jump start. But only bring Othman if he’s going to play at least 12 a night.
Miller doing a nice job against Fantilli this period.
Whoever with the down vote, address the question.
KAM put a good hit on Fantilli. He’s teasing us again.
STOP. MISSING. THE F@#$ING. NET!!!!!
Idiots
Trade friggin Lindgren
That was LAF not back checking again. He should be benched since he will be paid.
We’re about to hit .500 in the last four games of going into the third down.
I’m scared of having our pick being unprotected next year
Who the hell is scoring this game? They’ve given Columbus more giveaways than us… Smfh
Lindgren, just yikes. Quickie picks him up, though.
Lindgren also let the goal scorer get past him. Horrible team D again. He could use a night off.
Panthers leading Sens 2 -1
The New York Rangers are a country club not a hockey club.
Well, he’ll have two weeks off after this one, ORF 🤷🏻♂️
They really need to dismantle and rebuild this thing. It’s one really big mess and a lot of it is tied up in disinterested play by their so called star players.
Panthers just scored 3 goals on Ottawa in six and a half minutes.
They’re doing their part.
Vali banging on Laffo Busto again.
Panthers have 34 shots with 2 minutes left in the second.
That’s a team that doesn’t sit back on a lead. Rangers sit back when they’re down.
I love vally
Vally keeps talking about some vets leading a bad example, but doesn’t specify anyone.
Boy, as bad as Ladoggiere was on that killer, Lindgren might have been worse. Why would he leave JVR to cover, cover… no one?
Rangers have won 10 games by three or more goals this season. Two of them were in the last couple of weeks and five were in the first month of the season.
I think Lindy watched the drop pass for a split second and got caught flat footed as JVR beat him to the net.
He and Joe M specifically called out LAF and Valley called out Lavy by extension. I would guess Panarin is the vet he is thinking of. He has been critical of him in the past.
Coolio!
Will the Chill picks the corner
Seeing eye goal by Cuylle
Too much time.
2 feet in front and the dumbass passes it away.
The DJ isn’t unselfish ..he’s afraid
JT has been pretty quiet
Didn’t MSG have some crude video graphic where the goal and goalie get pushed into the net? I thought Rempe was going for that.
Thought Kreider would have typically have been going harder to the net for that pass though.
Rempe should go with Olivier just to get Olivier off the ice for 5 minutes
I wish the Rangers would learn how to fake shots instead of always putting it right into a defender.
No odd-mans, please. Defend this point, and try for another in OT.
Really don’t understand why the Finn is not playing with Foxy
Hell Yeah Cuylle!!!
COOLIO!!
Well that was exciting
Coolio shows how to play the game
I’m teeing up a “how did we get here Joe” for the fire drill
Boy was that Cuylle. The puck was attracted to his stick
Season savior?
Never in doubt.
Columbus coach BP is over 300
Still alive in 2025
That was a huge third period. Cuylle the star of this game.
Wild now up 4-3 over Isles
Not letting this team suck me back in after this win. When they string together 5-7 in a row, then will talk. Playing .500 hockey isn’t going to cut it, and it’s indicative of who they are.
Craig whether I’m 100% with you. Really can’t watch on this crap anymore. You just can’t play turning it on and off.
My pops said “we’re leaving at the end of the Ranger game” and I was like, I hope they don’t get to OT. Because, you know… the Rangers.
That worked out well. And the Panthers dominated the sens.
And my Blues just beat Olga’s Blackhawks. 3 for 3! That doesn’t happen much anymore. 🤦🏼♂️
The Rangers have allowed a total of 4 SOG over the last two 3rd periods.
Craig, the last four games, they’re at .750. And all the wins were come from behind in the 3rd. You don’t have to get sucked back in, but they’re actually worth watching at the moment. They’re doing things they haven’t done all season.
Fools gold in a weak conference
Looks like the Islanders just scored an own goal. 😂
I still watch them, because I like watching hockey. Certainly not saving up for any SCF tickets at MSG this year 😂
I’m getting tired of backing losing teams like the Rangers and Black Hawks.
I’m switching teams!
From now on I will be rooting exclusively for the Washington Generals.
EvRock,
Before that, they lost 3 in a row. And, they were completely outworked by a supposedly inferior Penguins squad. If they can’t get up for that game, why should I believe they have the juice to make a run? They’re very lucky to get help tonight with the teams they’re chasing losing, but if they keep playing .500 hockey, they’re not getting in. It’s that simple.
They’ll be undefeated for the next two weeks. Are we supposed to care about the 4 Nations?
Another Rempe win. Huh.
Roy pulled the goalie with 5 minutes to go and the Wild scored with 4:15 to go. A blind backhand from in front of the Wild net.
Olga, good call. The Generals are due for a win
Valliquette gets my #1 star of the game for calling out Laffy, the Vets and especially Laviolette by extension!! Will Lav ever hold Laffy accountable?? Why does he get a free pass, while all the other younger players pay a price for mistakes or lack of effort??? Laviolette needs to go!!!!
Only saw some of the first but caught a shift with the Force line either an extended ozone possession with Sam I am w Remps reeking havoc in front of net; so much fun to watch.
Hey, why not play the guy who can shoot?!?
*NEW POST*