3/25/21 | Assistant coaches Greg Brown and Jacques Martin have joined the Rangers in Philadelphia. (NYR)

Martin will coach the defense, Chris Drury will work with the forwards and Greg Brown, as he normally does, will join the bench later in the game. (NYR)

3/24/21 | 2:12 PM: Kris Knoblauch spoke after practice today and said (NYR):

• On Vitali Kravtsov, “Whether he is ready for the lineup, that is not my decision. I don’t know what the timetable is for him, that will be Gorts and Quinny that will decide that. I assume sometime later this year, but when, I don’t know. As for seeing Kravy, I’ve talked to him many times and in fact, he was the first person I saw in the hotel when I got the call-up and checked into the hotel before the game, I ran into him in the hotel and we’ve had a lot of opportunities to catch up.”
• On Igor Shesterkin, “Yes, Igor was out at practice and had the net to himself. He is expected to start on Thursday. No problems, he is 100% and we are excited to have him back.”

• On where Kravtsov could slot in,  “We have talked very little about that, so I don’t think it’s going to happen in the immediate future. They’ve asked how he is, how is his personality, is he happy to be here, is he working hard and he’s checked all the boxes, they’ve all been positive. I think they’ll want to see him, have communications with him, review the systems with him before they make the decision of throwing him into a game.”
• On changing the defense pairs, “No, we will keep the pairs as they are, they’ve been playing really well. I don’t think there is any need to change anything unless Quinny advises me otherwise. We’ve been happy with the defense and how they’ve played together and Bitetto being our seventh guy. He hasn’t had much practice time, he went to Hartford for a couple of games, but right now he is our seventh guy. He’s played very well for the Rangers when he has had opportunities, but the way the team is playing, especially the defense, everything will stay as is.”
• On how Quinn is and what the plan is, “He’s feeling fine, maybe a little under the weather the first couple of days, but very little. I talk to him regularly and he’s doing quite well right now. The plan is that I am coaching the next game, after that, we’ll see and go from there. Quinny is doing quite well.”
• On his conversations with Quinn, “I think every day his different and a lot of it is, our communications when I get the pre-scout when I get a video from Brownie, who does most of the pre-scout video, he puts it together, Quinny will get that, I’ll get that, we’ll look at it and whatever time of the day it is, we’ll hook up and talk about what we see, what we need and what we need to stress to our players. After the games, obviously, we’ll talk and we’ll communicate about who played well, maybe a line underperformed, maybe they need something, whether that is going over video or maybe someone has to change up on the line or just a message to them. I don’t think there is any set schedule that we have. Game days we talk a little more than we would on a practice day, but even going in for a practice, talked to him last night, what are some of the drills, what do you want to work on, practice was pretty much scripted by him. I think we did one drill that, maybe, was new to the players. We don’t have a set schedule, there is not a regular thing, usually it’s a couple of times a day.”

12:45 PM: Igor Shesterkin is expected to start on Thursday against the Flyers. (NYR)

Shesterkin last played on 3/4 against NJ and has been out since with a lower-body injury.

The lines used today at practice were (Walker)

• Chris Kreider, Mika Zibanejad, Pavel Buchnevich
• Artemi Panarin, Ryan Strome, Kaapo Kakko
• Alexis Lafreniere, Filip Chytil, Julien Gauthier
• Brendan Lemieux, Kevin Rooney, Colin Blackwell