Preview: Rangers Host Lightning to Kick Off Longest Homestand

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The Rangers' top line had the traveling Blueshirts faithful buzzing in Newark on Thursday night. The way they are going right now, they are the talk of their own locker room, too.
"I was just saying: They've got the makeup of a perfect line," Ryan Strome said on Friday in the Rangers' practice-rink dressing room. "They've got a scorer and a guy in the middle who can do everything, they've got a speed winger, and on the other side they've got a playmaker that makes little plays all over the ice that people might not appreciate as much but that are so helpful.
"When they're clicking," Strome said, "it's really fun to watch."
Coming off the Blueshirts' 4-3 victory in Newark on Thursday night after they spotted the Devils a 2-0 first-period lead, the Rangers return home to kick off their longest homestand of the season - five games over nine days at Madison Square Garden, beginning with the top team in the league this season, the Tampa Bay Lightning. The Blueshirts have won four out of their last five overall and at least a point in nine of their last 12 Garden games.
And that top trio of Chris Kreider (the speed winger), Mika Zibanejad (the man in the middle) and Mats Zuccarello (the playmaker) will return home red-hot, having combined for eight points in the Newark victory and 25 points over their last four games together overall.
Saturday's game will mark a milestone for one of them: Zuccarello will play his 500th NHL game, all of them in a Blueshirt, since he arrived in New York on a free-agent contract in May of 2010. The right winger had three assists and led all Rangers with 22:41 of ice time on Thursday night after being a game-time decision because of a foot infection. He has points in each of his last six games and 12 points over the stretch.

Asked if that foot issue was anything the Rangers had to keep worrying about, David Quinn said, "Apparently not."
While all 31 teams had the benefit of a break around the NHL All-Star Game, the Lightning were one of those that came out of the hiatus with a bit of rust showing, in a 4-2 loss in Pittsburgh on Wednesday night to begin a three-games-in-four-nights road trip that continued with a shootout victory on Long Island on Friday night and will conclude on Saturday night on Broadway.
Two games out of their own break, the Rangers feel the opposite about their own game - with a 1-0 loss to the Flyers in which they controlled most of the game, followed by Thursday's comeback in New Jersey.
"I think we've picked up where we left off, played two of our better games, I think," Strome said. "Against Philly, obviously you want to capitalize, but it's tough to really draw on a game like that where you dominate the game in my opinion. And Jersey, 5-on-5 again, I don't think they had too much, I think we dictated the play. … I think we've got to be pretty happy with where we're at, and we have a big test tomorrow.
"But I don't think the break's really bothered us, which is a good thing. It's fun coming to the rink when you're winning and things are going well. That's kind of the way we've been going right now. Hopefully we can keep that rolling."
Strome, who joined the Rangers in a November trade with Edmonton, said he feels he's been settling in recently with the Rangers, stretching back well before the break. A righty shot, he was playing the right wing to begin his stint on Broadway, but lately has been fixed in the middle, with a 19-year-old linemate on his left in Filip Chytil. The Rangers will lean on Strome in that role at least for the three-to-four weeks Brett Howden is expected to miss with a knee injury.
"Right now we've found a little consistency," Strome said. "That top line's obviously has been unbelievable, and me and Fil have a little bit of chemistry. You just try to find the pieces a little bit."
"I like the lefty-righty combo, with a right-shot center (Chytil) is probably going to get the puck a little bit more. And I think Strome distributes the puck well," Quinn said. "I think there's a little bit of chemistry there. And I think with Vladdy (Namestnikov) on that right side, I'd like to see how this looks over a little bit of a period of time. I think Vladdy gives that line a little bit of - a lot of speed, and guy who puts a little bit of grit to the line as well. So I'm anxious to see that line evolve."
As Strome noted, changes happen, and one of them that will come out of Thursday's game will be Pavel Buchnevich moving up the lineup for Saturday's game. Quinn bumped Buchnevich up for the third period in Newark and will start him against the Lightning on the left side of Kevin Hayes (two assists on Thursday) and Jesper Fast.
Fast, who took a maintenance day from practice on Friday, was one of three Rangers to commit penalties in the first period of Thursday's game, which led to two power-play goals for New Jersey and the deficit the Rangers would eventually overcome. The same thing was an issue when the Rangers and Lightning met for the first time this season, on Dec. 10 in Tampa, a game in which the Blueshirts could feel good about their 5-on-5 play, except that they went to the box four times in the first period alone. In all, Tampa Bay had six power plays to the Rangers' one in a 6-3 Lightning win.
"We talked about that today, the first thing we talked about," Quinn said on Friday. "Against a team like this, you can't take six penalties like we did the last game we played them. We put ourselves at a huge disadvantage. I don't care who you're playing, you put yourself at a huge disadvantage when you take six penalties and you only have one power play. So you can't have that discrepancy. We're certainly aware of that."
"Five-on-five that game, we had a great game, it was just the power plays hurt," Strome said. "We played them hard in Tampa, we've got to do it again."
On Friday night in Long Island, the Lightning were shut out for the first time this season, thanks to 41 saves from the Islanders' Thomas Greiss. Except that they still won the game, with Andrei Vasilevskiy pitching a 36-save shutout of his own over 65 minutes, then stopping all three Islanders he saw in a shootout to give the Lightning a 1-0 win, their league-leading 38th in 51 games this season. They have lost back-to-back games only once all year.
Vasilevskiy was taking his 17th start in 19 games since returning in mid-December from a broken foot, one game after the Rangers' Tampa visit. Louis Domingue could see the nets at the Garden on Saturday; Domingue has won eight straight starts and 16 out of 20 this season.
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Freddy Claesson skated on his own for the second straight day, and "is maybe a week to 10 days away," Quinn said. Claesson has been sidelined since Jan. 12 with a shoulder injury and will miss his seventh straight game on Saturday night. "He's getting better," Quinn said.

PROJECTED LINEUP

20 Kreider - 93 Zibanejad - 36 Zuccarello
89 Buchnevich - 13 Hayes - 17 Fast
72 Chytil - 16 Strome - 90 Namestnikov
8 McLeod - 24 Nieves - 26 Vesey
18 Staal - 44 Pionk
76 Skjei - 54 McQuaid
42 Smith - 22 Shattenkirk
30 Lundqvist
40 Georgiev

NUMBERS GAME

This is the 100th meeting between the Rangers and Lightning. The Blueshirts have won 48 and lost 46 (including seven OTLs), with five ties.
Henrik Lundqvist's fourth save on Thursday night in Newark moved him past John Vanbiesbrouck into eighth-place on the all-time saves list. Lundqvist has stopped 22,219 shots in regular-season games.
Nikita Kucherov leads the NHL with 79 points (22-57-79). He has been held off the scoresheet in three of the last six games, after being held scoreless in just eight of his first 45.
Since the start of last season, only Connor McDavid (181) has more points than Kucherov's 179.

PLAYERS TO WATCH

Mika Zibanejad, looking to top his NHL Second Star honors for last week, has eight goals in his last five games, including his second career hat trick on Thursday night.
Steven Stamkos had a seven-game points streak snapped on Long Island on Friday; he scored his ninth career hat trick in the Dec. 10 game against the Rangers.