David Quinn met with the media following the win over Columbus and said (MSG):

• Was it goaltender to the rescue, “that is an understatement. It was all about Georgie tonight.”
• On the game, “I just didn’t think we played with any pace, and physicality, I was surprised at how slow we were tonight. Give them credit, they played with an edge and with some pace but I didn’t think we had that one in us with the way things have been going but thank god for Georgie.”
• Why did you challenge the Jones goal, “if you watch the replay, stick in the gut before the shot. It seemed like goalie interference but apparently I was wrong.”
• On the defensemen, “our d-corp had to defend a lot but the bottom line is our d-zone coverage was a major, major problem tonight. We were not committed to playing defense and we weren’t committed to supporting each other coming out of our end. That hasn’t happened in a while and just really, if we are going to have any success we need to be committed to playing defense and we weren’t committed at all in that area tonight.”
• Why not put Smith on defense, “I just thought the 5 were fine, sometimes guys play better with five.”
• On Panarin, “he’s a big game player, regardless of what is going on he usually delivers statistically and he delivered a big one tonight. It was a heck of a play by a couple of guys on that goal, great pass by Howden, great pass by Tony and obviously Bread finishes it.”
• On their performance, “I don’t know whether our guys…every team in this league is good and you better respect your opponent. I don’t know if we are learning that or whether Bread coming back here, it’s frustrating because we haven’t done this in a while. I know we didn’t play great against Vegas but there were stretches where we rebounded. I thought the Vegas game was overscheduling situation, our 8th game in 13 days and if you look at that game, all of our young players had hard nights and didn’t play well and we had a heck of a practice yesterday and i was just surprised at what happened tonight.”
• On Hajek, “we will know more tomorrow, it’s a knee situation, to early to tell.”
• On Georgiev’s save late in the game, “yes, it’s an incredible save and I’m sure it’s not the last we will see of it.”

First Period:

• Cam Atkinson (5) ASST: Nick Foligno (9)
• Brendan Lemieux (5) ASST: Mika Zibanejad (10), Kaapo Kakko (6)

Second Period:

• PPG – Jacob Trouba (4) ASST: Adam Fox (10), Ryan Strome (18)
• Artemi Panarin (13) ASST: Tony DeAngelo (13), Brett Howden (5)

Third Period:

• Seth Jones (4) ASST: Dean Kukan (3)

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Libor Hajek only played 4:49 and did not play in the second or third period after a collision in the first period.

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Stats:

Adam Rotter:

• This was one of the best performances of Alex Georgiev’s career. Columbus pressured and had the puck for most of the first and almost all of the third but he never wavered. He made at least three out of this world saves but overall he looked calm, confident and well positioned in net. He’s the reason why the Rangers get to leave Columbus with two points.
• Brendan Lemieux tied it late in the first and the Rangers seemed to carry that over into the second, their only good period. They were able to get two in the second and, because of Georgiev, that was all they needed.
• Again, most of this falls to Georgiev and how good he was, but the Rangers had crucial penalty kills in the third and were able to keep Columbus off the board.
• Libor Hajek was likely going to be the player that came out, at least temporarily, when Marc Staal was ready to return but the injury he suffered tonight might make it happen anyway. If Staal isn’t ready to go yet, Brendan Smith may get put back on defense for a game with Haley or McKegg coming back in.
• So this is a win, and a win is a win, but this was not the performance the Rangers were looking for as a team. They were opportunistic, got a PP goal and the PK came up big, but at 5 on 5 the Rangers were the second best team on the ice for long, long stretches. Hopefully they play the bounce back game they were looking for tonight when they host the struggling Habs at MSG tomorrow.

6PM: David Quinn said before the game (NYR):

• On the lineup, “Boo is going to play on the left wing with Howden and Smith.”
• Is Staal ready, “not yet, him and McKegg are in similar situations with lower body injuries that might take more time than you envision and after practice yesterday neither of them looked game ready just quite yet, but they are getting closer.”
• Are Staal and McKegg here, “yea, they skated this morning. We weren’t sure they would be able to play or not.”
• Could they go tomorrow, “they both skated today and we will see.”

3:50PM: Alex Georgiev will be in net for the Rangers as they take on the Columbus Blue Jackets tonight.

Tonight marks the first time that Artemi Panarin is returning to Columbus after he left the Blue Jackets as a free agent following last season.

The Rangers top-two lines for tonight are expected to start as:

• Brendan Lemieux, Mika Zibanejad, Kaapo Kakko
• Artemi Panarin, Ryan Strome, Chris Kreider

The Rangers bottom six will likely feature Filip Chytil, Pavel Buchnevich, Jesper Fast, Brett Howden, Brendan Smith and either Boo Nieves or Micheal Haley.

Greg McKegg could also return, likely in the Nieves/Haley spot, after missing the past five games with a lower-body injury.

Marc Staal is questionable for tonight’s game as he returns from an ankle procedure that has kept him out the past 12 games.

Kaapo Kakko is also replacing Ryan Strome on the Rangers top PP unit with Strome joining Adam Fox, Jacob Trouba, Filip Chytil and Brendan Lemieux.

Joonas Korpisalo is expected to start for Columbus and the Blue Jackets will also be without injured defenseman Zach Werenski.

Adam Rotter: The big focus will be on Panarin, and John Davidson’s, return to Columbus but the Rangers and Jackets are right next to each in the standings. The Rangers have one game in hand and three more points but the two teams had consistency issues as the Rangers develop all of their young players and Columbus tries to move forward without Panarin, Bobrovsky and Matt Duchene. The Rangers need to manage the puck better, cover for each other defensively and be ready to play in the first period. All three of those things were issues against Vegas and put the Rangers in a hole. The Rangers made changes to their lines but more importantly, swapped Kakko back onto the top PP unit. It’s an important back to back for the Rangers as they look to pick up points before heading out west.

1:48PM: David Quinn met with the media on Wednesday after practice and said (NYR):

• On Kakko moving up on the PP, “our PP hasn’t been good enough and with Mika coming back and some moving parts, we are just better off having that lefty up on the half wall and I think Kakko over the last few games has earned that opportunity.”
• On Chytil/Buch for the second PP, “right now it’s going to be Chytil.”
• On the lines for Columbus being what they were in practice, “yes.”
  • Brendan Lemieux, Mika Zibanejad, Kaapo Kakko
  • Artemi Panarin, Ryan Strome, Chris Kreider
  • Greg McKegg, Filip Chytil, Pavel Buchnevich
    • • McKegg likely in Fast’s spot.
• On the PP and shooting mentality, “it’s a team-wide problem, we even saw it today in practice. We want to tap it in, that is our mentality and one of the reasons why we have one of the best shooting percentages in the NHL is because we only shoot when we think we are going to score. I think our differential for shot attempts, which can be a little deceiving, but over the course of 25-26 games it’s telling that there are games we are not shooting enough, more games than not, many more games than not. Our PP we have become very perimeter and don’t get into attack mode. We will have these ups and downs until we consistently understand that an early shot or attacking situation, instead of staying on the perimeter, we are going to cause ourselves problem on the PP.”
• On how the team tracks scoring chances, “there are different levels, an A chance, B chance. We are probably harder graders than other people because it’s an indication of how you are playing and there are plenty of times where we should have a scoring chance but we get none because we don’t shoot it. That happens a lot during the course of the season where we pass up a shot that would be a scoring chance and, from that, come other scoring chances. Zone time is important, we are trying to gauge our zone time and lately we’ve had some pretty good nights where we spend more time in the offensive zone than our opponents and not gotten a lot out of it.”
• Why is that players pass up shots, “I think that if you talk to anybody at the lower levels, college coaches or what-not, the new generation of player, the shooting, I think it’s a problem throughout our game as these kids are growing up. When you are the youngest team in the league…but I also think it might be a European thing too. We’ve just gotta keep harping on it and getting…even the last drill we did today, it was small area, 3-on-2 transition into our own end and 7 or 8 times we should shoot a puck and we don’t. It’s something we need to keep harping on. If I blew the whistle every time we should shoot a puck in practice, we’d still be in the second drill by now.”
• On Marc Staal, “he’s getting close. We will talk today and see how he feels. Having a lower body injury might take a little more time because of the skating aspect of it, he may be a little slower to come back than someone with an arm or elbow injury because you can keep skating and keep your legs. We will talk in a little bit as a staff and the medical team and him and tomorrow and decide if he will play tomorrow or not.”
• On McKegg, “McKegg is close, he could be in tomorrow. Another guy we will talk about when we get on the plane.”
• On Panarin, “his personality, I’ve said this a lot and you guys have been around him enough too, this guy never stops smiling, he enjoys life and as I jokingly say, if I signed an $81 million dollar contract I’d be happy and enjoy life too bu that is not the reason this guys smiles every day. This guy enjoys hockey, loves hockey, loves coming to the rink, loves getting better and when you ask me that question I think of some of the reaction that our players have on the bench during the course of the game when he does something, literally guys are elbowing each other asking if they saw that. That is the type of player that he is and there aren’t many in the league.”
• On Panarin’s English, “he’s made a conscious effort to continue to improve his English. He’s a bright guy, I always believe he knows more than he lets on as well (smile).”
• Does his return to Columbus become a talking point, “I haven’t that far ahead about whether I’m going to bring that topic up, I think it’s an obvious situation where guys will be talking about it and guys will have fun with it. To me, he loves the pressure, the spotlight and not in…he loves the pressure and spotlight of taking his team on his shoulders spotlight and I think this is another moment for him to continue to do what he has been doing for us since day 1.”
• On Jesper Fast, “he’ll be good.”
• Are you comfortable with Boo on the wing, “he was playing wing down in Hartford, I have no problem playing him on the wing.”
• Will he play there tomorrow, “we will see.”
• On having two days off between games, “we gave them a day off yesterday, only a few guys skated, our energy was as high as it’s been in a practice for a long time. You could feel it, there was a purpose and crispness and intention and enthusiasm. It was a good feel in that practice.”

11:25AM: At Rangers practice on Wednesday, Kaapo Kakko has replaced Ryan Strome on the top PP unit. (Brooks)

The players on that unit include: Kakko, Artemi Panarin, Mika Zibanejad, Chris Kreider and Tony DeAngelo.

The second PP unit includes Strome, Adam Fox, Jacob Trouba and Brendan Lemieux. Filip Chytil and Pavel Buchnevich are rotating in the fifth spot. (Mercogliano)

Marc Staal and Greg McKegg are both practicing but Jesper Fast is not because of a maintenance day. (Brooks)

David Quinn spoke on MSG after the loss to Vegas and said:

• On the start and game, “we just weren’t ready to play at that pace from the start, we looked sluggish from the get-go and take that penalty and give up that easy goal to start. The one thing that I did like, from probably around the 11-minute mark, we played a pretty good second half of the period, had some chances to get back in. Started the second period well and just gave them a gift and it changed the momentum of the game.”
• On the 3-0 goal, “it’s just bad reads. I didn’t like our mentality, we were too risk oriented, we just did not play a sound, structured game and fueled their offense, it was too much of a pond hockey feel in a lot of ways.”
• How do you move forward defensively, “we’ve either been good or really bad and you look at our goals against and things of that nature and our season statistics can be a little skewed because we give up 9 here and 6 there and 6 there and then play some pretty good games defensively and then have a night like tonight where we probably give up 25-30 scoring chances. It’s a mindset, something we have to completely buy into that night in and night out we have to be committed to playing the right way and playing defense. I didn’t think our d-corp was really all-in from a defending standpoint and we were too offensive driven.”
• On the PP, “we will think about changing it up.”
• What didn’t work on the PP, “we didn’t score. We did have some looks and didn’t take advantage of our opportunities.”