Rangers Return From Holiday Break Against Islanders

After coming off a five-goal third period against the Washington Capitals before the holiday break, the Rangers are back in action where they take on their crosstown rivals in Belmont Park (6:00PM on MSG).

Rangers	Rankings	Islanders
19-16-4	Record	20-13-4
15th	League Rank	9th
28th	Goals For	23rd
7th	Goals Against	8th
18th	Power play	26th
16th	Penalty Kill	11th

Rangers vs Islanders

The Blueshirts are coming off a five-goal third period which led to a come from behind 7-3 victory
- New York were trailing 3-2 entering the third, but they exploded for offense to knock off the Washington Capitals
Adam Fox is eligible to return against the Islanders after missing the previous ten games after going on long-term IR. However, despite being eligible, Fox is still in a non-contact jersey at practice and will miss Saturday evening’s game
Gabe Perreault remains in the lineup on the second line as he has had a good start to his pro career. Perreault has four points in six games and they have yet to lose a game with the 20-year-old in the lineup
The Islanders will get a big boost as their top center Bo Horvat will return to the lineup after missing the previous five games
- Horvat has 31 points including 19 goals in 32 games
Unfortunately for the Islanders, they do have a lot of other injuries including to their top two netminders in Ilya Sorokin and Semyon Varlamov
- Sorokin is expected back early next week
- Varlamov has yet to play a game this season as he deals with a knee injury and has an unclear timeline
- David Rittich will get the start for the Islanders. Rittich is 8-3-2 with a .913 save percentage on the season. Magnus Hogberg will back up.
- Rittich is 3-0-0 and has allowed just three goals on 93 shots against the Rangers in his career
The Islanders have many long-term injuries including Pierre Engvall, Alex Romanov, and Kyle Palmieri
- Engvall is expected to miss the rest of the season
- Palmieri is expected to miss the rest of the season
- Alex Romanov could in theory be back if the Islanders went on a deep postseason run, but he too is expected to miss the rest of the season
- Ethan Bear has yet to play a game this season and his timeline has gone mysteriously quiet
Igor Shesterkin will be back in net for the Rangers. Shesterkin took a puck high in practice, but head coach Mike Sullivan said the Russian netminder is okay and will start on Saturday evening
- Shesterkin is 16-11-3 with a .908 save percentage
The Rangers won’t be at full strength either. In addition to the loss of Fox, the Rangers will be without captain J.T. Miller who is week-to-week and not expected back until sometime in January
- And depth forward Adam Edstrom was originally listed as day-to-day with a lower-body injury at the beginning of December, has since been placed on long-term IR and like Bear, his timeline is murky