The Rangers have announced their roster for the NHL’s Return To Play training camp:
Forward (19): Pavel Buchnevich, Filip Chytil, Phil Di Giuseppe, Jesper Fast, Steven Fogarty, Julien Gauthier, Tim Gettinger, Micheal Haley*, Brett Howden, Kaapo Kakko, Vitali Kravtsov, Chris Kreider, Brendan Lemieux, Vinni Lettieri, Greg McKegg, Danny O’Regan, Artemi Panarin, Ryan Strome, Mika Zibanejad
Defense (10): Brandon Crawley, Tony DeAngelo, Adam Fox, Libor Hajek, Ryan Lindgren, K’Andre Miller**, Darren Raddysh, Brendan Smith, Marc Staal, Jacob Trouba
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Goaltending (4): Alex Georgiev, Adam Huska, Henrik Lundqvist, Igor Shesterkin
*Injured Reserve
**Only eligible for Training Camp
O’Regan, Raddysh, Crawley and Huska all spent this season in Hartford.
Haley underwent surgery for a bilateral core muscle injury in February and was listed as being out indefinitely.
Miller left Wisconsin and signed his entry-level deal, that begins next season, in March. Larry Brooks tweets that the NHL is allowing one non-roster player to take part in training camp.
Adam Rotter: Not many surprises with the Rangers roster, we knew Lias Andersson wasn’t coming, but I guess Brandon Crawley can be considered one since he spent most of this past season in the ECHL. The Rangers, after trading Joey Keane for Julien Gauthier and terminating Sean Day’s contract, don’t have a ton of depth on defense in the minors so Crawley got the call to join Hajek, Raddysh and the six defensemen already in the NHL. Up front I thought we might see Matt Beleskey, as a veteran, or Boo Nieves get the spot that probably went to O’Regan but O’Regan was second in Wolf Pack scoring and, if it matters, spent three of his four seasons at BU under David Quinn.
One of the big questions, if they are able to travel to Toronto healthy, will be who steps in for Brendan Lemieux when he serves his suspension. My guess is that Phil Di Giuseppe will get first crack, as Chris Kreider’s return bumps him from the Mika line, and they will go from there.
The biggest question though remains which goalie will start for the Rangers. Adam Huska is there for insurance and Alex Georgiev, unless he’s far and away the best in training camp, is in the number three slot. Initially I thought it would be Igor Shesterkin for sure, but, and maybe this is just nostalgia or emotions getting in the way, I think that if it’s close Henrik Lundqvist will start game one. I don’t think either goalie will have a long leash if they struggle, but my guess is that if Lundqvist and Shesterkin are neck and neck during training camp then they will give the nod to Lundqvist to start but have Shesterkin ready to take over.