Pregame: Rangers in Chicago for Original Six Match-Up

The eleventh place Rangers will be going head to head with the fifth best team in the National Hockey League tonight at the United Center, when they clash with the red-hot Chicago Blackhawks. The Blueshirts have been in an obvious struggle for about the last five or so weeks, and the last team they want to be playing at this point in time is the Hawks. Not only has Chicago taken seven of their last ten with only two regulation losses, they have also gained forward Marian Hossa, who has entered the lineup after sitting in the sky box for the first two months of the season with an injury.

As mentioned earlier, Wade Redden and Donald Brashear will make their returns tonight. That leaves Aaron Voros, Ilkka Heikkinen, and Enver Lisin as the healthy scratches in this one.

Rangers Projected Lineup:

Avery - Prospal - Gaborik
Higgins - Drury - Callahan
Boyle - Anisimov - Kotalik
Brashear - Christensen - Parenteau

Staal - Rozsival
Redden - Gilroy
Del Zotto - Girardi

Lundqvist

Scratches: Aaron Voros, Enver Lisin, Ilkka Heikkinen, Brandon Dubinsky (broken hand)

Henrik Lundqvist will start in goal for the fourth straight game, although he has not been himself as I detailed in this morning’s piece on the struggling Swede. Considering the level of competitiveness in Hank’s game, I would imagine that he is more than anxious to turn this thing around. The Rangers desperately need him if they want to win games right now, but lately he has not been there to make the big saves, for the most part anyway.

I like the idea of placing Avery back on the first line, but I will not give credit to Head Coach John Tortorella until he leaves the agitator there for more than just one period. Torts’ train of thought is quite frustrating right now with all of the line juggling he has done, but hopefully he will realize that they need time together if they want to develop some chemistryon that go-to trio up front.

Blackhawks Projected Lineup:

Sharp - Toews - Hossa
Byfuglien - Versteeg - Kane
Ladd - Madden - Brouwer
Eager - Fraser - Kopecky

Keith - Seabrook
Campbell - Hjalmarsson
Barker - Sopel

Huet

What scares me the most heading into the contest is the fact that the Rangers are going to have to play a strong defensive game tonight in Chicago. This is because of the deep and threatening offensive product the Hawks send out onto the ice game in and game out. If the Blueshirts cannot play solidified defense against this young and skilled squad, which has been the case for the past month, they will be blown out; plain and simple. However, there is a bit of hope being that the Rangers Blueline has tightened up this past weekend, but we will see if that remains constant come 8:30 pm.

You can follow my live game updates throughout the night at twitter.com/rangerstribune or you can see my most recent tweets on the new Twitter application located on the sidebar of this site.

(Images courtesy of AP Photo and Reuters)