Matt Rempe was sent down to Hartford and Jimmy Vesey has been activated from LTIR.
The lines being used at practice today were (Baugh):
- Artemi Panarin, Mika Zibanejad, Alexis Lafreniere
- Chris Kreider, Filip Chytil, Kaapo Kakko
- Will Cuylle, Vincent Trocheck, Reilly Smith
- Adam Edstrom, Sam Carrick, Jimmy Vesey
- Ryan Lindgren and Adam Fox
- K’Andre Miller and Jacob Trouba
- Zac Jones and Braden Schneider
Adam Rotter: We’ll see if Peter Laviolette goes with these lines tomorrow or if they were just a shake up for practice. It’s an interesting look and most notably separates Mika Zibanejad and Chris Kreider and Artemi Panarin and Vincent Trocheck. I think that the main goal of this shake up is to try and get Mika Zibanejad going offensively and putting him with Panarin and Alexis Lafreniere should hopefully do that. Even playing with just one of them would provide Zibanejad with his most creative winger since Pavel Buchnevich or even Mats Zuccarello and instead he’ll have two. Hopefully they will be able to create opportunities for him to use his shot,
It’s hard breaking up the third line with Will Cuylle, Filip Chytil and Kaapo Kakko, but this move allows Chytil into the top-six and get the ice time he’s been deserving. He’ll still have Kaapo Kakko and while Chris Kreider isn’t as physical as Will Cuylle, his speed, size and the physicality that he does have should mesh. It would have been interesting to see Chytil and Zibanejad flip since Chytil, Panarin and Lafreniere was the line the Rangers used to start the season before Chytil got hurt. The issue with that is that we’ve seen Chris Kreider, Mika Zibanejad and Kaapo Kakko and that line has never consistently delivered offensively.
Sliding VIncent Trocheck to the third line with Will Cuylle and Reilly Smith gives the Rangers a real sort of checking line that should be able to get in on the forecheck and provide a change of pace. Trocheck will probably remain in his spot on the PP and he may replace Chytil in late game situations, but his ice time is likely going to take a bit of a hit.
It’s a new look, if they go with it, and probably one that is needed to jog this Rangers team out of this little funk, despite the wins, that they have been in. There wasn’t much turnover from last year to this year and most of the lines had at least some status quo to them. Now it’s a new look from the top three lines and one that will hopefully create more offense, puck possession and rely less on Igor Shesterkin.