"The biggest thing I've always looked from goaltenders is are they tracking the puck," Trotz said of evaluating his goalies against the Rangers. "There's certain situations during a game where there's nothing they can do about it, but are they seeing and tracking the puck? It's no different then a batter in baseball, is he seeing the pitch? Is he picking up the ball early? That type of thing. You're just looking for sharpness and for me, it's which goaltender is tracking the puck really well."
While both teams are focusing on their respective and more pressing opponents in Florida and Carolina, who they'll face later in the week, they're both ecstatic to be back on the ice and competing. The exhibition game may not count for anything of substance, but there's plenty of incentive in playing a historic and storied rival game ahead of beginning the Qualifiers.
"It's a natural, long time rival, the energy will be there, it always is," Anders Lee said via Zoom on Tuesday afternoon. "We see these guys not only a ton during the season, but during the preseason every year. It'll be a good way for both teams to get revved up and to get our pace down, our timing down, all of those little things that you usually have six or seven preseason games for. Now, we have one leading into the Playoffs. So, it's an important game in the sense of getting all of those things down, the systems and all of those situational things that come about in a regular game. Both teams have a lot to look forward to."
RANGERS PROJECTED LINEUP:
Kreider - Zibanejad - Buchnevich
Panarin - Strome - Fast
Di Giuseppe - Chytil - Kakko
Howden - McKegg - Gauthier
Smith - Trouba
Lindgren - Fox
Staal - Deangelo
Shesterkin - Lundqvist
