The Rangers began their first road trip of the season with a couple of games in Pittsburgh, starting Friday night, before heading to Buffalo to do two more.
“Obviously, when you have a lot of people in the building, it changes the whole dynamic of the game, I think it will make a bit of a difference,” head coach David Quinn said on Wednesday. “But I hope one of the things we were doing pretty well in the second half of the year, we were a pretty good road team. If we can continue that trend we started last year.”
Before the coronavirus pandemic suspended the 2019-20 regular season last March, the Rangers had set a 10-1-1 record in their last 12 away games. In the condensed schedule of 56 games this season, the Rangers will play 28 times on the road.
While the NHL reassigned divisions to reduce travel, there are many protocols in place to limit player interactions not only with the public, but also with each other. Capitals received a $ 100,000 fine Wednesday after a group of players gathered in a hotel room without wearing face covers.
Shortly afterwards, Alex Ovechkin, Evgeny Kuznetsov, Dmitry Orlov and Ilya Samsonov were left on the league’s list of players who were not available to play or practice according to their coronavirus guidelines. They will all miss at least the next four games in Washington.
Quinn said the Rangers coaching staff had dealt with the capital fine and reiterated the importance of following protocols on the road this season.
“Obviously, we talked about what happened to Washington, we talked about it as a team [Thursday]”No doubt when we get to Pittsburgh, we’ll remind them of the details and review the whole protocol when we get to Pittsburgh as well.”
Artemi Panarin took to Instagram on Thursday to show his support for Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny ahead of planned protests in his home country this weekend.
The star winger posted a photo of Navalny, his wife and their two children, with a headline that translated to: “Freedom for Navalny.”
A well-known critic of Russian President Vladamir Putin, Navalny was poisoned with a nervous agent in August and spent his recovery in a German hospital. When Navalny returned to Russia on Sunday, he was immediately arrested and sent to a Moscow detention center, where he will have to await trial for alleged violation of the terms of his 2014 parole in a 2014 embezzlement case.
Blackhawks defender and fellow Russian Nikita Zadorov re-posted Panarin’s message in favor of Navalny on Thursday.
Igor Shesterkin will start in the Rangers ’net on Friday against the Penguins.
Brendan Lemieux, Brett Howden and Julien Gauthier got some reps on Thursday as a fourth line in practice. But Kevin Rooney later replaced Gauthier and centered Lemieux and Howden, with Colin Blackwell spinning.
“It’s a decision we haven’t made yet,” Quinn said on the fourth line. “Obviously, Julien shows a lot of fantastic features, he’s big, he’s strong, he can skate. I just think he’s still learning the NHL game, systematically, understanding certain situations, devoting a lot of time and effort to it. “
The Rangers assigned Morgan Barron and Matthew Robertson of the taxi squad to the team’s AHL affiliate in Hartford. The Wolf Pack training camp is already underway.