Preview: Rangers Open Two-Game Trip in Buffalo

BUFFALO - The Rangers take their young season on the road for the first time tonight to face the Buffalo Sabres in a matchup of two teams who opened their seasons on home ice Thursday night and came away disappointed for vastly different reasons.
The Rangers saw much to be encouraged about despite dropping a tight 3-2 decision to the Predators, last year's Presidents' Trophy winners, taking a 1-1 tie into the third period before PK Subban's goal off a faceoff put Nashville ahead to stay. It was Quinn's first game as an NHL head coach, and in the two days since he has noted the positives in his team's game but even more so has stressed the areas he wants to see cleaned up.
"We didn't spend enough time in the offensive zone, we gave up way too many odd-man rushes, and I thought that was a direct result of our hesitation on our forecheck. I didn't think we were as decisive on our forecheck as we were throughout the preseason," said Quinn, who counted 16 even-strength chances for Nashville, eight off the rush and five off turnovers.
"Too often we were waiting to skate instead of skating. So that's something we talked about."

On that note, Quinn will insert Cody McCleod tonight to make his season debut in place of Vlad Namestnikov, playing to the left of Brett Howden and Vinni Lettieri. Following the team's optional morning skate at KeyBank Center, McCleod described his role as to "play a physical game, bring energy," but the 34-year-old winger seemed eager to join a line with two teammates whose combined age is 43.

"I'll be playing with a couple of young guys who are good with the puck," McCleod said. "Hopefully I get some good scoring chances - just get around the net."
"This is a guy who's going to get after you, he's going to make you uncomfortable when you have the puck," Quinn said of McCleod, who he expects will bring "just a little more pace and energy. Cody had a good camp, he played well and we want to reward him."
The Sabres, playing the second of a season-opening four-game homestand, will be hoping to score their first goal of 2018-19 following a 4-0 loss to Boston in their opener. In many ways, the Sabres and Rangers hold much in common, being a young team with lots of new faces - Buffalo had eight new players on its roster for Opening Night, which came a day after the team named 21-year-old Jack Eichel its new captain.
"I think they're a team that's probably in the same boat as us, attitude-wise," Kevin Shattenkirk said. "We know they added some pretty nice pieces to their roster, they're a skilled team, very fast, we can't take them lightly. And obviously they lost big (Thursday) night. So we're going to be ready for a pretty angry team."

Quinn will see a familiar face in the Sabres' new captain: Eichel spent one season under Quinn at Boston University, during which he won the Hobey Baker Award as a freshman, beating out fellow finalist Jimmy Vesey a year before Vesey won it. Quinn allowed that coaching against his former recruit "will be a little different, I'm not going to lie."
"Like I say about him all the time, If you've never seen a hockey game before and you show up to warmups, the first thing you're going to say is, Who's number 9?" the coach said, referring to Eichel's number at BU and his new number with Buffalo after wearing No. 15 for three seasons. "He just looks different than everybody. He's got incredible skills, he's a physical specimen. … If he stays healthy he's going to have a heck of a year."
The Rangers will complete the weekend back-to-back in Carolina tomorrow, the first of 11 back-to-back sets for the Blueshirts.

PROJECTED LINEUP

Chris Kreider-Mika Zibanejad-Pavel Buchnevich
Jimmy Vesey-Kevin Hayes-Mats Zuccarello
Ryan Spooner-Filip Chytil-Jesper Fast
Cody McCleod-Brett Howden-Vinni Lettieri
Brady Skjei-Adam McQuaid
Brendan Smith-Kevin Shattenkirk
Marc Staal-Neal Pionk
Henrik Lundqvist
Alexandar Georgiev

WHADDYA SAY?

Sabres second-year coach Phil Housley following his team's 4-0 season-opening loss to Boston on home ice:
"Was it disappointing in front of a good crowd that was here to support us? You're dang right it's disappointing. So what can we control? We can control how we come to the rink tomorrow and work because we are not going through this again."

PLAYERS TO WATCH

The Vesey-Hayes-Zuccarello unit was easily the Rangers' best in Thursday's opener, combining for nine shots on goal but unable to break through on the scoresheet.
The Sabres decided long before the NHL Draft this past June that they would spend their No. 1 overall pick on Rasmus Dahlin, an 18-year-old Swedish blueliner who made his NHL debut on Thursday.
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