Rangers take their iffy report cards into MSG to battle the Leafs

Anthony Scultore Updated: Oct 30, 2015

In another subtle and funny moment during yesterday’s presser, Alain Vigneault made a comment that should light a fire under the Rangers tonight. “If you would go through the whole group and ask them to rate themselves from 1-10…there’d be a lot of people hovering on getting a talk from their mothers on their first report card.”

This isn’t John Tortorella’s fire and brimstone type statements, but AV has a way of letting you know what he thinks about how his team or some of his players are performing. In fairness, he absolved both his goalies and Kevin Klein from that remark. He even gave Derek Stepan a bit of a pass, although I would not. But as I’ve said earlier and my fellow writer @HockeyStatMiner broke down for you today with analytics, the Rangers are still in very good shape.

As luck would have it, the Rangers come out of a long hiatus to face a struggling goaltender in Jonathan Bernier. The winless Leafs’ goalie faces maybe the league’s best goaltender this season not named Carey Price. Henrik Lundqvist is on fire and better yet, does very well with rest. Per ESPN, here are his stats when he has time to recharge…it’s only 1 game, but he was very sharp last time he had 3+ days off.

Look for the Rangers, in particular Rick Nash, Ryan McDonagh and Mats Zuccarello to be flying. It’s time for #61 to break loose and fill the net tonight against a struggling Bernier. With the way he’s been generating chances he should cash in.

Maybe after tonight’s game, most Rangers will go home with a Gold Star on their jerseys.
10/29/15 PRESSER “REPORT CARDS”