Tonight at 7:00 p.m. ET, the Columbus Blue Jackets (18-20-4, 40 points) and New York Rangers (21-20-2, 44 points) hit the ice at Madison Square Garden in New York City for the third of four meetings against each other this season. The game can be live streamed here. Columbus fans can hear all of the action by adjusting their radios to Sports Radio 97.1 while New York fans can do the same on 98.7 WEPN.
Columbus enters play having won four of its last seven games while New York went 3-2-0 on their last road trip and now returns home. The teams have swapped 4-2 wins in their first two meetings, with the Rangers beating the Blue Jackets in Columbus on Nov. 7 and Columbus extracting revenge in New York on Dec. 12. The Rangers sit four points in front of the Blue Jackets in the standings, but Columbus has a game in hand.
The Rangers are coming off a game where the team scored a season-high seven goals with a 7-1 victory over the Toronto Maple Leafs in front of backup goalie Cam Talbot.
"The guys played great in front of me," Talbot, who is first in the NHL with a .938 save percentage, said after the game via NHL.com. "Scoring the first goal and getting the lead was important."
No.1 goalie Henrik Lundqvist will likely start tonight and is 12-16-2 with a 2.78 goals-against average and a .905 save percentage thus far this season. The Blue Jackets have announced that Sergei Bobrovsky will be the starter, and he is 10-11-2 with a 2.72 GAA and a .909 save percentage.
After jumping out to a 2-0 lead, the Blue Jackets eventually fell apart and lost to the St. Louis Blues 6-2 on Saturday.
"There's no excuses. We just didn't have an answer for it. They came hard," Mark Letestu told the team website. "To the D's credit, they held the fort as long as they could. As a group of forwards, we didn't support them enough. It wore our D down and you saw the results there in the third."
The Blue Jackets have been led up front by Ryan Johansen, who has 32 points off of 16 tallies and 16 helpers while Brandon Dubinsky has seven goals and 19 assists for 26 points and Nick Foligno has found the twine 11 times and added 13 assists for 24 points. Dubinsky has 11 points in his last 14 games.
The Rangers have been paced by Mats Zuccarello who has 10 goals and 20 assists for 30 points while Brad Richards has lit the lamp 10 times and added 18 helpers for 28 points and Derek Stepan has seven markers and 19 assists for 26 points. Chris Kreider leads the Rangers with 11 goals this season while Rick Nash (7-9-16) will face the team he used to be the captain of tonight.
There will be plenty of familiar faces when the Blue Jackets and Rangers faceoff tonight at Madison Square Garden in New York City.
© Copyright 2024 Sports World News, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
