Rangers Look Ahead to Opening Night: "It's Just Amazing"

Brett Howden was standing in the Seventh Avenue plaza of the Garden, taking some time on Monday to greet a crowd of Rangers fans who had come down to the box office for 2018-19 tickets. To look at him, you'd think he was so excited for Thursday's game that he might have hopped in line to buy a ticket himself.
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He almost had to be reminded that when the Rangers play host to the Nashville Predators on Thursday night, Howden will be in the lineup, making his National Hockey League debut on Opening Night at Madison Square Garden.

Standing next to Ranger, the team's 8-month-old Yellow Lab who is training to become a professional service dog, Howden looked very much like a young pup in a Blueshirt himself as he signed autographs and posed for selfies - which is its own reminder that this former first-round draft pick is not very far removed from his 20th birthday. A little ways down the concourse, Filip Chytil was chatting with fans in two languages; Chytil turned 19 less than a month ago, and on Thursday will suit up for Opening Night in a Blueshirt for the second time in his career. Over by a railing, Alexandar Georgiev was signing some autographs of his own; all of 22 years old, he has seized the role of Henrik Lundqvist's backup and says he can hardly wait to be a part of his first Opening Night.

If any of them would admit to being pleasantly surprised to be there, it might be Howden, whose impressive summer has landed him a place on the Rangers' roster in his first camp since coming to Broadway as part of a blockbuster deadline trade with Tampa Bay last February - of which he said, "looking back, it's the best thing that ever happened to me."
"I didn't really know what to expect coming into camp. I was ready for whatever the management decided was best for me and I just tried to do the best I could do at camp," Howden said as Ranger bellied up to the box office. "I'm really thankful for the opportunity."
Georgiev said starting the season on Broadway this year "means the world to me." What he remembers about the first game he played at the Garden was that it was the second of a back-to-back in which he took both starts. After stopping 38 shots in Montreal on Feb. 22, Georgiev was set to take the net against Edmonton on Feb. 23 "after we'd just landed at 2 o'clock in the morning back in New York.

"So I got a pretty good sleep and then came to the rink. It was a special feeling to hear them announce, 'Welcome to the ice, the New York Rangers.' Unbelievable."
Speaking about some of his personal goals for 2018-19, Chytil said he wants the start "to go better" than last year, when he was sent to Hartford two games into the season, adding: "I want to see the fans have fun and come watch my game, (watch me) play my game. I want to play for the team. And I want to make the playoffs. "Everyone says our team is not as good as last year's, but I think we can surprise people and prove them wrong."
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