The Rangers kick off their first road trip of the season with a few games in Pittsburgh starting Friday night before heading to Buffalo for two more.
“Obviously when you have a crowd in the building it changes the whole dynamics of the game, I think it will make a little difference,” said head coach David Quinn on Wednesday. “But hopefully one of the things where we were pretty good in the second half of the year was we were a pretty good road crew. If we can continue that trend that we started last year. “
Before the coronavirus pandemic suspended the 2019/20 regular season last March, the Rangers had set a 10-1-1 record in their last 12 away games. In the shortened 56-game schedule this season, the Rangers will play on the road 28 times.
While the NHL has realigned the divisions to reduce travel, many protocols have been put in place to limit players’ interactions with not only the audience, but with each other. The capitals were fined $ 100,000 on Wednesday after a group of players gathered in a hotel room without a face covering.
Shortly afterwards, Alex Ovechkin, Evgeny Kuznetsov, Dmitry Orlov and Ilya Samsonov were placed on the league list of players unable to play or practice in accordance with their coronavirus guidelines. All will miss at least Washington’s next four games.
Quinn said the Rangers coaching staff had addressed the Capitals’ fine and reiterated the importance of following protocols on the road this season.
“We spoke clearly about what happened to Washington, we talked about it as a team [Thursday], “he said.” Especially when we get to Pittsburgh, we will remind them of the details and also go through the protocol when we get to Pittsburgh. “
Artemi Panarin took to Instagram on Thursday to show his support for Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny ahead of the planned protests in his native country this weekend.
The starwinger posted a photo of Navalny, his wife and their two children, with a caption that translated to “Freedom for Navalny.”
Navalny, a noted critic of Russian President Vladamir Putin, was poisoned with a nerve agent in August and spent his recovery in a hospital in Germany. When Navalny returned to Russia on Sunday, he was immediately arrested and sent to a Moscow detention center, where he is awaiting trial for alleged violation of the terms of his probation after an embezzlement in 2014.
Blackhawks defender and countryman Nikita Zadorov re-posted Panarin’s pro-Navalny message on Thursday.
Igor Shesterkin starts in the net for the Rangers against the Penguins on Friday.
Brendan Lemieux, Brett Howden and Julien Gauthier took a few reps as fourth line in training on Thursday. But Kevin Rooney later replaced Gauthier and centered Lemieux and Howden, with Colin Blackwell in the rotary.
“It’s a decision we haven’t made yet,” said Quinn of the fourth line. “Julien clearly shows a lot of great qualities, he is big, he is strong, he can skate. I just think he’s still learning the NHL game, systematically, understands certain situations, he puts a lot of time and effort into it. “
The Rangers have assigned Morgan Barron and Matthew Robertson from the taxi crew to the team’s AHL branch in Hartford. The Wolf Pack training camp is already underway.