New York Rangers look to course correct against Avalanche
The New York Rangers have a tall task on hand as they host the defending Stanley Cup champions, Colorado Avalanche on Tuesday night.
Facing three teams that failed to qualify for the playoffs last season in Anaheim, San Jose, and Columbus, the Blueshirts went 1-1-1 at the Garden. Now, the team is looking to find their game that made them so successful in the playoffs and end this 4 game homestand on a positive note.
“First game against Tampa Bay we saw the identity of our team,” Gerard Gallant said after practice on Monday. “We’ve seen our team in some spots the last five games but not enough. You’ve got to bring your game for a full 60.”
Here’s today’s game and broadcast info:
New York Rangers (3-2-1) vs. Colorado Avalanche (3-2-1)
Date/Time: October 25, 2022 at 8:00 PM ET
Arena: Madison Square Garden
TV: ESPN, ESPN+
Radio: ESPN 98.7
New York Rangers looking to course correct
The Blueshirts are 1-2-1 in their past four games, dating back to a 4-1 loss in Winnipeg to the Jets, another club that did not see postseason action.
Some of their defensive bad habits were on display in a 6-4 win versus the Ducks, but it all bubbled up in the third period of a 3-2 loss against the Sharks. A period that Gallant called “embarrassing.”
In their last game on Sunday night, they raised the ire of Gallant again in a 5-1 loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets.
“We were far from good enough,” he said. “We were slow. I didn’t like the way we played. I like our team being an aggressive forechecking team. I didn’t see much of that. I thought were a step behind all night from a team that played back-to-back games, so I’m disappointed with that. The speed of our game wasn’t good.”
The team will have to go about tightening up defensively and still find offense along the way. That became a little more challenging with Filip Chytil out for at least the next four games with an upper-body injury suffered in the first period against the Jackets.
Versatile forward, Barclay Goodrow will center the third line in Chytil’s absence.
“We have the leadership and the maturity in here to turn things around,” Goodrow said. “Tomorrow night is a great time to do it.”
Artemi Panarin scored the only goal in their last game to give him a league-best 12 points. They will need him to continue his hot streak as they will play two sets of back-to-backs this week.
“We’ve got a lot of games to play here,” Jacob Trouba said. “I don’t think there’s a panic level in here.”
Alexandar Georgiev back with Avs
Colorado heads to New York off to the same 3-2-1 start as the Rangers, but the Avalanche are still missing captain Gabriel Landeskog, who is recovering from knee surgery.
Even without Landeskog, the Avalanche are the league’s fourth-best scoring team (22 goals in six games), thanks to a hot start from Valeri Nichushkin. Nichushkin has 6 goals and 11 points and has collected at least one point in each game.
The Avalanche enter a three-game trip through the New York area after playing three games in four nights.
Tuesday also marks goalie Alexandar Georgiev’s return to New York. Georgiev came up as Henrik Lundqvist’s backup during the 2017-18 season and started 117 games for the Rangers before his rights were traded to Colorado, which re-signed him to a three-year deal.
Georgiev is 3-0-1 with a 2.76 goals-against average in four games for his new team and made 33 saves Saturday.
The Rangers are also likely to see Dryden Hunt, whom the Avs claimed off waivers last week. He’s played two games since registering no points and 7 hits.
Colorado is 6-1-1 in the past eight meetings with the Rangers and scored 11 goals in sweeping the season series last year.
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–Field Level Media contributed to this article.
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