Rangers Travel to Vegas vs the Defending Stanley Cup Champ

After defeating the Seattle Kraken by the score of 5-2, the Rangers begin a four-game road trip starting in Vegas (10:00PM on MSGSN).

Rangers	Rankings	Golden Knights
28-13-2	Record	25-14-5
5th	League Rank	8th
12th	Goals For	18th
9th	Goals Against	8th
2nd	Power play	17th
9th	Penalty Kill	16th

Previous Game

New York is coming off a 5-2 victory over the Seattle Kraken. The Rangers got goals from Vincent Trocheck, Erik Gustafsson, Kaapo Kakko, and Blake Wheeler chipped in for two. Kakko’s goal was just his third of the season, and his first since coming back into the lineup after he was out for a prolonged period due to injury. Igor Shesterkin recorded his 18th win of the season making 29 saves.

Rangers vs Golden Knights

The Blueshirts will continue their six-game stretch against the Western Conference when they travel to Vegas on Thursday night. This will be the second game of six against the West. The Golden Knights are coming off a Stanley Cup winning season where they defeated the Florida Panthers in five games. They did it with an exclamation point by scoring nine goals to win the series and the first Stanley Cup in franchise history.

Leading the Golden Knights in points are both Mark Stone and Jack Eichel; each have 44 points on the season. Stone features on the top line with Chandler Stephenson and Pavel Dorofeyev. Dorofeyev has twelve points in 24 games whereas Stephenson is fifth on the team in scoring with 22.

Eichel on the other hand will not feature against the Rangers. Eichel underwent surgery for a lower-body injury and is currently week-to-week. Eichel is out on Thursday night and will likely miss the following game between these two teams just eight days later in Madison Square Garden.

The Golden Knights have other major injuries including to starting netminder Adin Hill, William Karlsson, and Shea Theodore. Theodore underwent surgery for his upper-body. The 28-year-old is considered week-to-week, but he hasn’t played since November. Meanwhile, Karlsson hasn’t played since the Winter Classic as he is dealing with a lower-body injury. Hill is dealing with an undisclosed injury and not much is known on when he will return. Lastly, Vegas is missing Ben Hutton, Michael Amadio, and Will Carrier who are nice depth pieces. Vegas enters the game 4-8-0 in their last twelve games.

Logan Thompson will get the start for the Golden Knights. Thompson is 14-9-3 with a .908 save percentage on the season. Thompson was injured in the postseason last year and Hill played lights out and was able to keep the starters net for the rest of the postseason and to start the regular season.

Shesterkin will be back in net for the Rangers after winning his previous two games. With Shesterkin scheduled to go on Thursday night in Vegas; do not be surprised if the Rangers give Jonathan Quick the start in Los Angeles against his former team. Quick won two Stanley Cups as a member of the Kings, including once against the Rangers. Quick earned the start against his former team for the first time this season and he held them to one goal. The veteran netminder has never played in Crypto.com Arena as a member of the visiting team.

Adam Fox is starting to look more and more like his old self. Fox missed ten-games with a lower-body injury earlier this season. The American defenseman has five points in the past four games as he is starting to heat up. Three of those five points have been goals.

New York is slated to stick with the same lineup that played against the Kraken. The Rangers have won two straight-games, but prior to that they were defeated in four-straight games.

The bet of the night – The last bet was about as poorly timed as it could be. We tried a two-leg parlay with shots on goal between Fox and Alexis Lafreniere and neither of them hit their line or was even close. Let’s get back to basics on Thursday night and keep things simple with an anytime Vincent Trocheck point.Trocheck has points in six of the past seven games. At -184 odds a $5 bet will pay $7.72 for a profit of $2.72.

Current record: 15-10

Current Money Total (Based on $5 bets) – We are up $35.70 on the season