New York Rangers Conclude Four-Game Road Trip Against Sharks

After snapping their road losing skid by defeating the Anaheim Ducks on Sunday night, the Rangers will conclude their road trip in San Jose where they look to finish the road trip at .500 (10:30PM on MSG).

Rangers	Rankings	Sharks
29-15-2	Record	12-31-4
5th	League Rank	32nd
13th	Goals For	32nd
9th	Goals Against	32nd
2nd	Power play	22nd
8th	Penalty Kill	32nd

Rangers vs Sharks

New York will look to finish their road trip at .500 when they travel to San Jose. The Rangers were defeated by the Golden Knights and Kings on the four-game road trip before they defeated Anaheim. After falling behind 2-0, New York responded with five straight goals to defeat the Ducks. Goal scorers included Vincent Trocheck, Will Cuylle, Artemi Panarin, Chris Kreider, and Jimmy Vesey.

While the Sharks rank dead last in the league standings; including in goals for, goals against, and penalty kill, San Jose played the Rangers hard in early December. The Blueshirts defeated San Jose by the score of 6-5 and New York survived the Sharks late comeback. The Sharks are on a three-game point streak winning each of their last two games and recording an overtime defeat just before the start of their winning streak.

Sharks captain Logan Couture will play in just his third game of the season after missing the first half of the season due to injury. Couture has one point in two games this season.

Leading the Sharks in points is Tomas Hertl. Hertl has 33 points in 46 games and his 14 goals is tied for the team lead in goals with Fabian Zetterlund. The Sharks second leading points scorer is Mikael Granlund who has 29 points, but Granlund is currently injured and is considered week-to-week.

MacKenzie Blackwood is slated to start in goal for San Jose. The Rangers know Blackwood well from his time in New Jersey. Blackwood is 5-8-0 lifetime against the Rangers with an .884 save percentage. In addition, Blackwood hasn’t defeated the Rangers in each of his last six starts against the Blueshirts.

Igor Shesterkin will be back in goal for New York. Shesterkin had a quiet night on Sunday as he faced just 18 shots on the evening. The Russian netminder is 4-0-1 lifetime against the Sharks.

Filip Chytil has returned to New York. Chytil has played in just ten games this season as he continues to recover from a concussion. The Czech center was at home working hard on his recovery with Czech coaches and progress feels like it was made. The Blueshirts will be hoping the 24-year-old can return to the lineup and provide much needed scoring depth to the Rangers bottom-six. Chytil started the season on the second line with Panarin, however Trocheck got the opportunity and ran with it. It would be hard to see head coach Peter Laviolette moving Trocheck away from Panarin.

Mika Zibanejad has nine points in the last eight games against San Jose. He has also scored at least a point in seven of those eight games. Adam Fox is currently on a five-game point streak against the Sharks.

The bet of the night – The bet of the night will be an anytime Adam Fox power-play point. Fox has points in five-straight games and the Sharks have the worst penalty kill in the league. San Jose averages just shy of four penalties a game, while the Rangers draw just shy of four penalties a game. If the Blueshirts get four power-plays based on percentages they’ll score on at least one of them and having the quarterback of the power-play seems like a safe bet while giving you the chance to make some money. At +150 odds on FanDuel, a $5 bet will payout $12.50 for a profit of $7.50.

Current record: 16-12

Current Money Total (Based on $5 bets) – We are up $31.40 on the season