Preview: Rangers Complete Back-to-Back Set Against Capitals

RANGERS at CAPITALS, 12:30 p.m.MSG, 98.7 FM
WASHINGTON -- The Rangers and the Capitals will be getting to know one another over the next week.
Following Saturday's matinee win at Madison Square Garden over the Devils, the Rangers are set to drop the puck less than 24 hours later in another afternoon affair in D.C. It is their third meeting this season with the defending champs and the first of a pair of Sunday clashes, with the Capitals making one more stop at the Garden in one week's time.
Sunday's game will complete the Rangers' eighth of 11 back-to-back sets on the 2018-19 schedule - in three of those, they have finished the back-to-back with a game against the Caps. In the second games of these sets, they have earned points of four of the seven they have played so far.
This time they come in off a commanding win over the Devils in which some players began grabbing the opportunities in front of them. Ryan Strome led the way with two goals in his 400th NHL game to reach double digits for the fourth time in his career, and four other Rangers finished with multiple points as the Blueshirts improved to 7-0-1 in their last eight games coming off a regulation defeat. It was an emotional win for the Rangers that came with Mats Zuccarello, Kevin Hayes and Adam McQuaid held out of the lineup.

Later on Saturday, the Rangers acquired a conditional second-round draft choice in 2019 and a conditional third-round pick in 2020 from the Dallas Stars in exchange for Zuccarello, who spent nine seasons in a Blueshirt.
"This is an incredible opportunity for all these guys coming back," David Quinn said on Saturday. "You're a professional, you're always getting evaluated, I don't care what the situation. Winning feels better than losing, so we've still got a chunk of games here. We just got two more points. … We've just got to keep moving forward."
The Rangers have been filling scoresheets in recent games, with contributions coming from up and down the lines. They have scored five or more goals in three of their last five outings, and in their last four games alone, they have received 13 goals from 10 different players.
Strome has three of those, including a pair yesterday as the Rangers sunk their teeth into the Devils early and never let go. Strome has points in six of his last seven games (3-4--7), and he's not the only one chipping in: his linemate Vlad Namestnikov set up his second goal on Saturday and has five points and a plus-4 rating in the last five games; Jimmy Vesey opened the scoring against the Devils and tacked on an assist in 20:45 of ice, his season high in a 60-minute game; Pavel Buchnevich has a three-game points streak; and then there is Mika Zibanejad, who continued his career year with a pair of assists that gave him 60 points in 61 games this season.
"We had players step up in bigger roles, and you get opportunities, and today a few guys definitely took advantage of that," said Brady Skjei, who wore the Broadway Hat after scoring in the third period. "It was an unbelievable effort by us with all the circumstances going on, to come out, battle hard and put up five goals. It's pretty impressive."
"I think it's just about trying to be a good pro," Chris Kreider said after Saturday's game, in which he scored the game-winner to hit the 25-goal mark for the second time in his career. "We've got good veterans - Marc Staal, Kevin Shattenkirk, guys who have been around and been through it, and they led the way."
Another one of those is Henrik Lundqvist, the 14th-year Blueshirt who served as the backup to Alexandar Georgiev on Saturday and would be up for his 40th start against the Capitals if he gets the nod as expected on Sunday. Lundqvist has started only three of the Rangers' last seven games, but that includes the two prior to the Devils game: He was superb in stopping 43 of 44 shots in Carolina on Tuesday, then made 31 saves and suffered the loss two days later at the Garden against Minnesota in a game that Quinn was comfortable putting in the trash as an outlier, "because we hadn't played like that in a long time, and that was a huge dropoff from what we have been doing for five, six weeks," the coach said on Saturday.
"It was one of those games where I didn't watch a second of the game (on film), and we didn't talk about the game," Quinn said. "We needed to move forward."
Following the win over the Devils, Quinn will have precious little time for whatever film study he can stomach on the NHL's leading scorer, Alex Ovechkin, who stretched his goal-scoring streak to five games on Saturday with his 44th of the season, and 30th at even strength. Quinn has already seen Ovechkin score three times in two games against his Rangers, including a pair of very familiar power-play goals on one-timers from the left circle when the Rangers visited here on Oct. 17.
The Rangers will see another familiar face in Washington's recent acquisition: Carl Hagelin made his Caps debut on Saturday after being acquired from Los Angeles on Thursday. A day later, Washington dealt for defenseman Nick Jensen from Detroit, and promptly signed him to a four-year contract extension. Jensen will make his Capitals debut against the Rangers on Sunday when the Caps play their first home game since Feb. 11.
While the Rangers were working on their 5-2 win over the Devils, the Caps at the same time were on the flip side in Buffalo, taking a 5-2 loss to the Sabres that closed out a six-game tour to the West Coast and back that Washington finished 3-3. Since emerging from a seven-game skid from Jan. 12-23, Washington is 7-4-1 but has not strung together three wins in a row.
Braden Holtby took the loss in Buffalo to drop to 4-6-2 with an .898 save percentage in his last 14 games, so Pheonix Copley - who has won his last three starts and who made 27 saves in a win at Madison Square Garden on Nov. 24 - is in line to oppose Lundqvist on Sunday.

PROJECTED LINEUP

20 Kreider - 93 Zibanejad - 26 Vesey
90 Namestnikov - 16 Strome - 17 Fast
72 Chytil - 50 Andersson - 89 Buchnevich
42 Smith - 24 Nieves - 23 Brickley
18 Staal - 77 DeAngelo
76 Skjei - 44 Pionk
33 Claesson - 22 Shattenkirk
30 Lundqvist
40 Georgiev

NUMBERS GAME

Mika Zibanejad, who had two assists on Saturday, has scored 14 goals in his last 16 games. His next goal would match his career high, set last season when he scored 27 goals in 72 games.
The Rangers are 97-96-18-9 all-time against Washington.
Neal Pionk has four assists in the Rangers' two meetings with the Caps this season.
Through Washington's 62 games, Ovechkin is on pace to score 58 goals; the only time he scored as many came in his third NHL season, 2007-08, when he led the league with 65 goals and 112 points. He has a five-game goal streak for the 13th time in his career, most of any player since he entered the league in 2005-06.
Nick Jensen and his new teammate Brooks Orpik were the only players to play in at least 80 games last season without scoring a goal. Each blueliner has scored twice this season.

PLAYERS TO WATCH

Three of Lias Andersson's 29 NHL games have come against the Capitals, including the first two of his career, in which he scored his first NHL goal in his NHL debut last March 26, followed by his first NHL assist two nights later in Washington.
Evgeny Kuznetsov has 18 points (5-13--18) in 18 career games against the Blueshirts. Fourteen of Kuznetsov's 15 goals this season have come on home ice.