Banter Preview: Rangers vs Sens

Dec 2, 2022 - 6:45 PM

Tonight, it’s the New York Rangers vs. the Ottawa Senators at 7:00 p.m. ET at the World’s Most Famous Arena.

The good news is that we know the Rangers can beat Ottawa — after all, they just did it. The bad news is that the Rangers haven’t done much winning at all lately and they need this so bad that the team stinks of desperation. At the moment, this team appears to have as much confidence as someone who just ate some bad shrimp on a first date and just realized there’s no toilet paper on the roll. That’s kind of how things feel right now, so winning another game against the Senators sure would be nice.

• Ottawa’s Record: 8-13-1
• Ottawa’s Last 10 games: 4-5-1
• Brady Tkachuk PIM: 34

Last time around, offensive dynamo Ryan Lindgren had three primary assists in a 3-1 victory that was also Jaroslav Halak’s first win as a Ranger. That’s right haters, he got his first win before we got to December! It was a victory the Blueshirts desperately needed and a game they were supposed to win — the Sens are at the bottom of the Atlantic Division. If the Rangers are going to claw their way back to being actual contenders they are going to need to continue to win the games they are supposed to win. Thanksgiving has come and gone. It’s time this team figures out what it needs to do to win more hockey games and stops ordering shrimp while dining in a land-locked state. It’s just not smart, friends.

The big story to keep an eye on tonight is Vitali Kravtsov getting another chance with Artemi Panarin. We’re going to have a line of Panarin-Chytil-Kravtsov which sounds like a delight on paper and because it has nothing to do with Ryan Carpenter it pretty much has to be a good thing. Kravtsov had 10:30 TOI last time around and put two shots on net but it sounds like he made an impression on Gerard Gallant.

Tonight’s game will be the second of the season series before these two teams wrap things up on Mar. 2, 2023. The Rangers will be right back in action tomorrow night against the Blackhawks at 7:30 p.m. which is undoubtedly another one of those games the Rangers “should” win.

Enjoy tonight’s game.