The Rangers began their first trip of the season with a couple of games in Pittsburgh, starting Friday night, before heading to Buffalo for two more.
“Obviously, when you have a lot in the building, it changes the whole dynamic of the game, I think it will make a little difference,” head coach David Quinn said on Wednesday. “But, hopefully, one of the things we were pretty good at in the second half of the year, we were a pretty good road team. If we can continue that trend that we kind of started last year. ”
Before the coronavirus pandemic suspended the 2019-20 regular season last March, the Rangers recorded a 10-1-1 record in the last 12 away games. In the condensed program of 56 games this season, the Rangers will play 28 times on the road.
While the NHL has realigned divisions to reduce displacement, there are a lot of protocols in place to limit players’ interactions not only with the public, but with each other. The capitals were fined $ 100,000 on Wednesday after a group of players gathered in a hotel room without wearing faces.
Shortly afterwards, Alex Ovechkin, Evgeny Kuznetsov, Dmitry Orlov and Ilya Samsonov were placed on the list of players in the league who were not available to play or practice according to their coronavirus guidelines. Everyone will miss at least the next four Washington games.
Quinn said the Rangers coaching staff addressed the fine to the Capital and reiterated how important it is to follow the protocols on the road this season.
“Obviously, we approached what happened to Washington, we talked about it as a team [Thursday]”Certainly, when we get to Pittsburgh, we’ll remind them of the details and go through the whole protocol when we get to Pittsburgh.”
Artemi Panarin took to Instagram on Thursday to show his support for Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny ahead of planned protests in his home country this weekend.
The star wing posted a photo of Navalny, his wife and their two children, with a caption that translates to “Freedom for Navalny.”
A well-known critic of Russian President Vladamir Putin, Navalny was poisoned with a nervous agent in August and spent his recovery at a hospital in Germany. When Navalny returned to Russia on Sunday, he was immediately arrested and sent to a Moscow detention facility, where he will await trial for alleged violations of probation conditions due to a 2014 embezzlement case.
Blackhawks defender and Russian colleague Nikita Zadorov reposted Panarin’s message pro-Navalny on Thursday.
Igor Shesterkin will start in the net for the Rangers on Friday against the Penguins.
Brendan Lemieux, Brett Howden and Julien Gauthier took a few rehearsals on Thursday as the fourth line. But Kevin Rooney later replaced Gauthier and centered on Lemieux and Howden, with Colin Blackwell spinning.
“It’s a decision we haven’t made yet,” Quinn said of the fourth line. “Obviously, Julien has a lot of great features, he’s great, he’s strong, he can skate. I think he’s still learning the NHL game, systematically, understanding certain situations, putting a lot of time and effort into it. ”
The rangers assigned Morgan Barron and Matthew Robertson from the taxi crew to the AHL branch in Hartford. The Wolf Pack training camp is already underway.