Match Overview
Tonight the New Jersey Devils face off against the New York Rangers for the sixth time this season. The Devils have won two of the previous four meetings, both coming at Madison Square Garden. Mackenzie Blackwood has had a rough go around lately. However, he’s in the tricky situation where he’s letting in goals on not a ton of shots. On the bright-side, most of the goals he wouldn’t be able to save.
Worth noting, it has been confirmed by head coach Lindy Ruff that both Jesper Bratt and Pavel Zacha will not play tonight due to injuries. Each are listed as “day-to-day.” Mackenzie Blackwood is also the projected starter tonight.
Projected Devils’ Lines
Check social media’s closer to game time for full lineups.
Projected Rangers’ Lines
Forwards
Kreider – Zibanejad – Buchnevich
Panarin – Strome – Blackwell
Lafreniere – Chytil – Kakko
Rooney – Howden – Kravtsov
Defense
Lindgren – Fox
Miller – Trouba
Hajek – Smith
Goaltending
Shesterkin
Georgiev
What/Who to Watch
- Rangers’ forward Colin Blackwell has come out of nowhere to become a solid middle-six option this season. He currently has 12 goals and 17 total points in 33 games and is playing with Ryan Strome and Artemi Panarin. Now, this may be the Panarin-effect of getting to play with a superstar and it making you look fantastic. But, we’ll have to wait and see until he joins another team, which could be next season if Seattle chooses him in the expansion draft.
- Pavel Zacha was injured during the opening shift of period two this past Sunday. It is still unclear what happened, but hopefully he will be back soon. Surprisingly, he has been one of New Jersey’s worst players at five-on-five, in terms of possession statistics. However, he does co-lead the team with 25 points and is second on the team with 10 goals, his advanced metrics are worse than the guys around him points-wise. He has a corsi-for percentage (CF%) of 49.04% and an expected goals percentage (xG%) of 48.45%. Now these aren’t awful, but if you compare them to Jesper Brat who has the same amount of points as Zacha, but a 55.72 CF% and a 54.09 xG%.
- Nico Hischier finally returned to the lineup on Tuesday after missing 24 games and 45 days with a sinus fracture and a mild concussion. His impact was not felt however, with his line producing an abysmal 26.09 CF% and 39.24 xG%. We’ll have to see if head coach Lindy Ruff changes up the lines before the next game, but this one clearly didn’t work.
Tonight’s Devils game is on MSG+2 at 7:00 PM EST.