Preview: Rangers Open Back-to-Back Set in Calgary

RANGERS at FLAMES, 9 p.m.MSG 2, 1050 AM
CALGARY -- Let's try this again … again.
For the second time in a shade over a week, the Rangers have had a wrongfully convicted player set free. Brendan Lemieux will be able to celebrate his 23rd birthday in the Rangers' lineup when he and the Blueshirts finish up their Pacific Division schedule with Alexandar Georgiev in the nets on Friday night at the Saddledome. Lemieux's match penalty from the second period of Wednesday's game in Vancouver is no more, with another mea culpa from the league office. And the Rangers once again can carry on as if nothing at all happened.
Except, of course, for what did happen. Lemieux came together with an off-balance Antoine Roussel of the Canucks midway through Wednesday's game, causing Roussel to go down awkwardly and injured, and convincing officials that a match penalty for Lemieux was in order. It took only a quick second look to clear Lemieux of that.
Most regrettable of anything, of course, was that Roussel came away from the incident with a knee injury that will force him out for the remainder of the season. Canucks coach Travis Green said the injury would not require surgery.
"I knew on the play - I was upset, (but) I knew I probably wasn't going to be in any trouble," Lemieux said on Friday morning following the Rangers' pregame skate. "It's a fast game; they're humans, and mistakes are made. And so I think that's kind of what happened on the play.
"It's unfortunate for our team and for me at the time, but it's part of the game and it's completely understandable. It's unfortunate even more so that he got hurt on the play as bad as he did, and you never want to see that. But it's also part of the game.
The official about-face comes only eight days after a similar swing for Mika Zibanejad, who had his game misconduct overturned after a hit in Dallas resulted in the Rangers' top center's ejection in the third period of a one-goal game. That one was the first major penalty Zibanejad had ever received in an NHL career closing in on 500 games.

The Rangers had to play the last 10 minutes in Dallas without Zibanejad in Dallas; on Wednesday they were short two forwards - Lemieux and Chris Kreider - for half the game.
Lemieux's case was a step up in severity for the fact that the on-ice crew landed on a match penalty, which is deployed when officials see intent to injure, and which triggers an automatic suspension until the player goes through a hearing. Upon further review, no such hearing was necessary.
"It gets real tiring talking about these things," David Quinn said on Wednesday.
And Quinn means that when he says it: Immediately after Wednesday's game the head coach made clear that he has little interest in apologies, making them or getting them. "We can sit here and talk about the penalties all we want, but I'm going to focus on the things we can do better," Quinn said.
Among them, the coach said on Friday, was not so much getting pucks at the net but getting bodies there. Quinn singled out a play made by Brady Skjei early in Wednesday's third period, when he won a footrace on a Ranger power play and made a strong drive to the net, forcing Jacob Markstrom to make a save while also drawing a holding penalty on Troy Stecher. The play set the Rangers up with a 5-on-3 for 1:33.
"We do a lot of good things, but when it's time for getting to the net and having an attack mentality offensively, we just don't have it right now," Quinn said. "We certainly talked a bit about that this morning, and it's something that we're going to have to get back in our game. I thought we had it for a while, but the last three or four games we just haven't had that.
"If we were doing everything we can to score goals I'd feel a lot worse, but I don't, because I know there are things we can do better to put ourselves in a position to be more productive offensively."
With games on back-to-back nights to close out this four-game road trip, Georgiev will take Friday night's game with Henrik Lundqvist going on Saturday in St. Paul. Over his last three starts, Georgiev has stopped 98 of 104 shots (.942) to go along with a 1.95 goals-against average. This will be the rookie's 24th start of the season and the first in his career against the Flames.
Calgary is in a two-horse race with San Jose for the Pacific Division crown. The Flames have run hot and cold since James Neal (lower body) went on the shelf a month ago, following a seven-game win streak with a four-game regulation skid, then winning the first two of the three-game homestand that they will wrap up on Friday night. Most recently, on Tuesday night, they blew the doors off the Devils with a 9-4 win, the second time this season the Flames have racked up nine in a game.
"He's been in situations like this before and he's answered the bell," Quinn said of Georgiev. "I think he's got a big enough body of work that we have a pretty good idea of what we have right now in our goalie. We're incredibly confident with him in the net. He doesn't get rattled by situations like this - he's proven he's got the mental toughness to respond to the challenges that he's going to face tonight."
Johnny Gaudreau, the New Jersey native, heaped the most suffering on the Devils on Tuesday with six points on the night, including his fifth career hat trick. Gaudreau already has put up career numbers in every category this season, tied for fourth in the league with 90 points (33-57--90). Prior to his hat trick, though, he hadn't scored in the previous nine games and just once in the previous 19.
The Rangers put a season-high 45 shots on goal in the season's first meeting with the Flames, on Oct. 21 at the Garden; David Rittich stopped 44 of them, his career high, in a 4-1 Calgary win. Rittich was named the Flames' starter for Friday night - his fifth start in Calgary's last six games - a day after Mike Smith stayed home from practice with an illness.

PROJECTED LINEUP

20 Kreider - 93 Zibanejad - 17 Fast
90 Namestnikov - 16 Strome - 26 Vesey
48 Lemieux - 21 Howden - 89 Buchnevich
72 Chytil - 50 Andersson - 23 Brickley
18 Staal - 77 DeAngelo
76 Skjei - 22 Shattenkirk
42 Smith - 44 Pionk
40 Georgiev
30 Lundqvist

NUMBERS GAME

The Rangers are 10-2-1 against the Flames over the last nine seasons, including a 4-1-1 mark at the Saddledome.
The Blueshirts play their final game of 2018-19 against a Pacific Division opponent on Friday night. Since the start of the 2014-15 season, the Rangers are 47-17-9 vs. the Pacific - 21-11-4 on the road, including a 3-0-1 record in Calgary.
The Flames are 22-7-5 on home ice this season.
Calgary has outscored opponents 69-68 in first periods, 73-72 in second periods, then 103-56 in third periods.
Johnny Gaudreau's six-point game on Tuesday was the first in the NHL in more than five years, since Dallas' Jamie Benn had a goal and five assists on Nov. 14, 2013, in Calgary.

PLAYERS TO WATCH

Mika Zibanejad has five goals and seven points in his last six games against the Flames. Zibanejad scored his second career hat trick on Jan. 31 in Newark; his first came at the Saddledome, on Feb. 27, 2016, when he played for Ottawa.
Mark Giordano, Calgary's captain, is having his best season at age 35: His 65 points (14-51--65) put him third in the league among defensemen and are by far a career high in 68 games played, over which he has averaged 24:33 a night.
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