Preview: Rangers Back in Action Against Blue Jackets

BLUE JACKETS at RANGERS, 7 p.m.MSG2, 1050 AM
SCORE GREAT SEATS FOR THE GAME! CLICK HERE
The Christmas break behind them, it's time for the Rangers and the rest of the NHL to punch back in - and the Blueshirts will do so on Thursday night at Madison Square Garden with a Metropolitan Division match with the streaking Columbus Blue Jackets.
"It's always odd when you don't put your skates on for a couple days, but it comes back pretty quick," Brady Skjei said on Thursday after the Rangers reconvened with a morning skate in Westchester. "The team felt good and we feel like we didn't lose a step."
"It's an opportunity to get your mind away from it a little bit, which is always a good thing," David Quinn said of the league-wide three-day break, "and to hit restart and get dialed back in again. Starting tonight."

The Rangers will skate at the Garden on Thursday night for the final time in 2018, before hitting the road for a two-game trip beginning in Nashville and concluding on New Year's Eve in St. Louis. On Thursday night they'll play in a rink where they have earned points in 13 of their last 14 games (9-1-4); after that, seven of the Rangers' next nine games will come away from home.

"We're just looking at tonight," said Mika Zibanejad. "We know we have a tough schedule coming up, a lot of games before this (All-Star) break here.
"Every point really matters, especially against a division rival like tonight. It's huge."
The Rangers entered the Christmas break this past weekend with a 5-3 loss in Toronto on Saturday followed by a shootout loss to the Flyers on Sunday at the Garden. Both those games were tied through 40 minutes, and after a look at the tape, Quinn said at Thursday morning's skate that "5-on-5 we had the upper hand in both those games."
"But our power play has to get better," the coach continued. "Our power play has to not only be productive, but a bad power play can demoralize you as well - you got out there for two minutes, you've got five, they've got four, and all of a sudden you get nothing out of it, and it's a little bit demoralizing. So we've got to get back to playing with a pace on our power play, and have it give us some life against Columbus."
After busting out with three goals on the man-advantage on Dec. 14 against Arizona, the Rangers' power play went 1-for-11 over the next four games. Searching for a spark, and with Kevin Shattenkirk out with a separated shoulder, Quinn tried going with five forwards on power plays over the past two games, but summed up after Sunday's game what he planned to do with that alignment: "Kaboom."
Shattenkirk skated with his teammates on Thursday morning with no restrictions, about 2½ weeks after suffering his injury in Tampa, on Dec. 10. Quinn termed his defenseman "very close" to a return - as are Jesper Fast (upper body) and Cody McLeod (hand), who also were among 24 players (14 forwards, eight defensemen, two goaltenders) to skate on Thursday morning in Westchester.
Quinn said he is hopeful that at least one or two of them might be ready to return by Saturday's game in Nashville. The NHL roster freeze lifts at midnight, following Thursday night's game.

For now, Quinn will ice the same lineup he put out against Philadelphia. That includes a third straight game in which Skjei will be paired with Adam McQuaid, who will play his fifth game since returning from a lower-body injury, and asked about the effectiveness of that pairing on Thursday morning, Quinn said he saw it as part of a larger upward trend for his team.
"Brady's played well lately, and Adam is certainly finding his game with each game that goes by back in the lineup after being away for as long as he has. I think those guys have done a good job," the coach said, adding that over the three games since Henrik Lundqvist kept them in it against the Golden Knights at the Garden, "we've been much better defensively. … We've been much better structurally defensively the last few games, we haven't been giving up those crazy chances, and people haven't been having flurries against us, and that's great to see.
"We didn't play great against Philly, but there was that structure we want to have, when you don't have a great night you've got a chance to survive and win, because you're committed to that defensive structure no matter what system you have or what structure you're in. We did a good job of that."

They'll face a Blue Jackets team on Thursday that has yielded just seven goals over its last six games, and won its last four in a row entering the Christmas break. A fair amount of that had to do with Sergei Bobrovsky, who will serve as the backup on Thursday night at the Garden. Columbus' No. 1 netminder stopped 130 of 134 shots in wins over New Jersey (twice), Philadelphia and Vegas, and was named the NHL's First Star of the week.
Instead on Thursday night, the Rangers will see Joonas Korpisalo for the second time this season. On Nov. 10 in Columbus, the Rangers put four pucks past Korpisalo on 19 shots, then three more on five shootout attempts in securing a 5-4 win over the Blue Jackets. Korpisalo's last start came on Dec. 11.
Beyond Bobrovsky, Cam Atkinson did his share with four goals in Columbus' four wins heading into the break, upping his team-leading total to 23 - tied for fifth in the league. Seventeen of Atkinson's goals have come over the last 20 games.
"Every team brings a different challenge, and this is a different challenge than Toronto and Philly," Quinn said. "They play a hard-nosed style, obviously they've got some high-end guys. … There's going to be a lot of confrontation around the puck against this team for sure, and we've got to be ready to match it."

PROJECTED LINEUP

72 Chytil - 93 Zibanejad - 89 Buchnevich
20 Kreider - 13 Hayes - 36 Zuccarello
26 Vesey - 21 Howden - 90 Namestnikov
50 Andersson - 24 Nieves - 16 Strome
18 Staal - 44 Pionk
76 Skjei - 54 McQuaid
33 Claesson - 42 Smith
30 Lundqvist
40 Georgiev

NUMBERS GAME

Boo Nieves' game-tying goal against the Flyers on Sunday made him the 23rd player to score for the Rangers this season.
Kevin Hayes has 13 points (5-8-13) over his career-high seven-game points streak.
Since facing the Rangers on Nov. 10 in Columbus, Joonas Korpisalo is 4-0-1 in spite of a save percentage of .884.
The Blue Jackets are 10-0-0 on Thursdays.

PLAYERS TO WATCH

Pavel Buchnevich had his first multipoint game of the season, a goal and an assist, in the Rangers' Nov. 10 victory in Columbus, after which he missed a month with a broken thumb. Playing on a line with Mika Zibanejad and Filip Chytil, Buchnevich came inches within a pair of goals on Sunday against Philly, once near the end of the first period off a Chytil setup, then near the end of a tie game when he beat four Flyers and glanced his shot off the goaltender's shoulder pad.
Artemi Panarin, who leads the Blue Jackets with 39 points (11-28-39), has 10 goals in nine games against the Rangers. Panarin has two hat tricks in his career - both have come at Madison Square Garden.
2018-19 Rangers Tickets Are on Sale Now. Click Here to Get Tickets »