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Filip Chytil

Calgary Flames left wing Matthew Tkachuk (19) celebrates with teammates after scoring a goal during the game between the Dallas Stars and the Calgary Flames
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The Buzzer: Flames snap three-game skid; Rangers cruise past Ducks

By Scott CharlesDec 23, 2019, 12:42 AM EST

Three Stars

1) Chris Kreider, New York Rangers

The Blueshirts were looking to end a three-game losing streak and Kreider’s back-to-back goals helped put the game out of reach for the flu-riddled Ducks. At 12:16 of the first period, the power forward intercepted a pass and converted a nifty deke on a breakaway as he recorded his ninth of the season. Then, early in the middle frame, No. 20 tipped in a pass from Mika Zibanejad to extend the Rangers’ lead to three goals. Kreider will be one of the most talked about names in the NHL as the trade deadline approaches and performances like these will only boost his value.

2) Matthew Tkachuk, Calgary Flames

Calgary is looking to re-establish itself as one of the elite teams in the Western Conference and a 5-1 win over the Dallas Stars was a step in the right direction. Tkachuk buried a power-play goal when he wired a wrist shot from the left circle to give the Flames a 2-1 lead at the time. He added two assists including a pretty pass from the side of the net to set up Sean Monahan in the slot.

3) Clayton Keller, Arizona Coyotes

The Detroit Red Wings are having a historically bad season, but Keller’s two goals helped lead the Coyotes to a 5-2 win. The 21-year-old could be the biggest beneficiary of the Taylor Hall trade if Arizona’s opponents choose to focus on Hall and Phil Kessel. That would leave Keller with matchups against second and third pairing defensemen which could help him produce a lot more offensively as the Coyotes look to make a bid for the Pacific Division title.

Highlights of the Night

Filip Chytil has not quite lived up to lofty expectations yet, but plays like this help you realize why the Rangers front office is so high on the young center.

Hall’s snipe was his first with the Coyotes

Mikael Backlund snapped an 18-game goalless drought with this impressive rush toward the net

Stat of the Night

NHL Scores

New York Rangers 5, Anaheim Ducks 1

Arizona Coyotes 5, Detroit Red Wings 2

Calgary Flames 5, Dallas Stars 1

Vegas Golden Knights 3, San Jose Sharks 1

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Scott Charles is a writer for Pro Hockey Talk on NBC Sports. Drop him a line at phtblog@nbcsports.com or follow him on Twitter @ScottMCharles.

Rangers’ Chytil blasts through Ducks defense for great goal

Chytil goal
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By James O'BrienDec 22, 2019, 2:58 PM EST

Times have been tough for young Rangers players, but a beautiful Filip Chytil goal highlights their promise. Chytil showed speed, hands, and finishing ability in slicing through the Anaheim Ducks’ defense on Sunday.

Again, that goal stands in contrast to some troubling updates for some of the Rangers’ prospects/young players. Earlier this week, reports surfaced that Lias Andersson wants out via a trade. Also, the Rangers didn’t just lose their third consecutive game on Friday; 2019 second overall pick Kaapo Kakko also suffered an injury.

So, yeah, Chytil scoring this splendid goal could soothe some uneasy feelings. Either way, enjoy this beauty of a goal:

Could this Chytil goal start another hot streak?

Chytil burst onto the scene once the Rangers called him up in late October.

The 20-year-old scored a goal in each of his first two games, setting off a hot run of six goals and one assist in eight games. By late November, Chytil generated 10 points (including eight goals) in an impressive 16 contests.

For whatever reason, Chytil froze up with the weather starting in December. Before scoring that sensational Sunday goal, Chytil managed just one assist in nine games this month. Call it a chicken-and-the-egg situation, but either way, his ice time has dropped from 16:37 per night in November to less than 14 minutes per game in December heading into this afternoon.

Later in the game, Chytil suffered a scary fall. The early word is that Chytil might avoid an injury:

Kreider value rising?

While fans watch young players develop, other GMs are eyeing potential trade targets — at least if the Rangers end up as sellers.

Chris Kreider looms as the most obvious person to watch, even if the Rangers hang in there. He’s a pending UFA, so Kreider simply might not fit into their long-term plans. Games like Sunday could pump up Kreider’s trade value, as he has two goals (and counting?) against the Ducks.

The Rangers beat the Ducks 5-1.

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James O’Brien is a writer for Pro Hockey Talk on NBC Sports. Drop him a line at phtblog@nbcsports.com or follow him on Twitter @cyclelikesedins.

Capitals vs. Rangers livestream: How to watch Wednesday Night Hockey

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By Sean LeahyNov 20, 2019, 7:00 PM EST

NBCSN’s coverage of the 2019-20 NHL season continues with the Wednesday Night Hockey matchup between the Washington Capitals and New York Rangers. Coverage begins at 7 p.m. ET on NBCSN. You can watch the game online and on the NBC Sports app by clicking here.

Washington defeated the Rangers 5-2 on home ice earlier this season. Caps forward T.J. Oshie tallied two power play goals, while defenseman John Carlson notched three assists to help Washington continue their dominance over the Blueshirts.

The Capitals currently own the best record in the NHL (16-3-4 – 36 points) and have just one regulation loss in their last 16 games. Washington is averaging an NHL-best 3.74 goals per game and have scored the most goals in the league by far (86). They’ve been especially dominant on the road. Their only regulation road loss came on Oct. 10 in a 6-5 loss at Nashville, and they are currently on a nine-game road point streak. They own the best road record in the league (10-1-1).

The Rangers had an impressive 3-2 overtime win over the Penguins last week but followed that up with two disappointing losses in Florida. New York got obliterated by the Lightning on Thursday night, losing 9-3 in Tampa, and then blew a 3-2 second period lead against the Panthers on Saturday, falling 4-3 in regulation.

Mika Zibanejad will not suit up for Wednesday’s game as he is still recovering from an upper-body injury. Zibanejad has not played since suffering the injury on Oct. 27 against the Bruins. Wednesday will be his 10th consecutive game missed.

The Rangers will be getting their second-overall draft pick back after he missed the last two games with the flu. Kaapo Kakko was scratched prior to Thursday’s game against the Lighting and did not play in Saturday’s loss against the Panthers as he was still feeling ill. After a slow start to the season, Kakko has been one of New York’s top scorers as of late. The 18-year-old is coming off his first two-goal outing of his career in last week’s 3-2 overtime win over the Penguins, and he also tallied the first OT winner of his NHL career.

[COVERAGE OF RANGERS-CAPITALS BEGINS AT 7 P.M. ET – NBCSN]

WHAT: Washington Capitals at New York Rangers
WHERE: Madison Square Garden
WHEN: Wednesday, Nov. 20, 7 p.m. ET
TV: NBCSN
LIVE STREAM: You can watch the Rangers-Capitals stream on NBC Sports’ live stream page and the NBC Sports app.

PROJECTED LINEUPS

CAPITALS
Alex Ovechkin – Evgeny Kuznetsov – Tom Wilson
Jakub Vrana – Lars Eller – T.J. Oshie
Richard Panik – Mike Sgarbossa – Travis Boyd
Beck Malenstyn – Chandler Stephenson – Brendan Leipsic

Michal Kempny – John Carlson
Dmitry Orlov – Radko Gudas
Jonas Siegenthaler – Nick Jensen

Starting goalie: Braden Holtby

RANGERS
Artemi Panarin – Ryan Strome – Jesper Fast
Chris Kreider – Filip Chytil – Pavel Buchnevich
Brendan Lemieux – Brett Howden – Kaapo Kakko
Tim Gettinger – Greg McKegg – Brendan Smith

Libor Hajek – Jacob Trouba
Brady Skjei – Tony DeAngelo
Ryan Lindgren – Adam Fox

Starting goalie: Henrik Lundqvist

Mike Emrick, Eddie Olczyk and Brian Boucher will call Capitals-Rangers from Madison Square Garden in New York, N.Y. Kathryn Tappen will host Wednesday’s coverage on NHL Live alongside analysts Keith Jones and Mike Milbury and NHL insider Bob McKenzie.

NHL on NBC analyst and 2019 NHL Hockey Fights Cancer ambassador Eddie Olczyk discusses his career and fight with colon cancer in an interview with Kathryn Tappen in a 30-minute special Wednesday at 11:30 p.m. ET on NBCSN following Wednesday Night Hockey. Olczyk was named the NHL’s Hockey Fights Cancer ambassador earlier this month and November marks Hockey Fights Cancer Month throughout the league. You can watch it live here.

Rangers begin training camp with goal of making the playoffs

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Associated PressSep 15, 2019, 6:06 AM EDT
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The New York Rangers have two clear goals this season: to keep improving and return to the playoffs after a two-year absence.

The addition of forwards Artemi Panarin and Kaapo Kakko, and defenseman Jacob Trouba this summer helped accelerate the team’s rebuild, and now the Rangers believe they are ready to take the next step in the second year under coach David Quinn.

”We want to make the playoffs,” Quinn said Friday at the team’s practice facility in Greenburgh, New York, ‘Obviously it’s something we want to accomplish. The moves we made over the summer are just a continuation of what we’ve been doing over the last 16, 17 months. Within the walls of our locker room and the walls of this building, we feel good about the direction we’re going in and we’re going to continue to get better daily.”

The Rangers went into rebuilding mode by dealing some veterans at the trade deadline in 2018 and continued it at last season’s deadline. There were a lot of ups and downs in the first full season of the makeover, and they finished 32-36-14. New York had just five wins in its last 21 games (5-10-6) to end up seventh in the eight-team Metropolitan Division, 20 points out of the last wild card in the Eastern Conference.

Now, the team that began training camp with on-ice testing on Friday has even higher expectations than the one that left for the summer five months earlier.

”I want improvement,” Rangers team president John Davidson told reporters one day earlier: ”Playoffs is a goal for sure, but there’s got to be improvement the right way that you can count on long-term to get gratification out of the season.”

Quinn believes the familiarity the returning players have with his system should help their second training camp together get off to a better start than a year ago. And they should be better prepared for their coach’s physical demands.

”They certainly have done everything we’ve asked them to do away from the rink,” Quinn said. ”They look in better shape, they’re a little bit older, a little bit more mature. We just want to continue to build on the progress they made last year.”

Signing Panarin in free agency was a big boost. The 27-year-old had 28 goals and 59 assists last season while helping Columbus get the last wild card in the Eastern Conference and then beat Presidents’ Trophy-winning Tampa Bay to advance to the second round. He brings career totals of 116 goals and 204 assists in 322 games over four seasons with Blue Jackets and Chicago Blackhawks.

Kakko was selected with the No. 2 overall pick in this year’s NHL draft, and Trouba was acquired in a trade with Winnipeg and then signed as a restricted free-agent.

Davidson, who rejoined the organization in May after stepping down as the president of the Columbus Blue Jackets, knows Panarin well.

”He’s competitive, really competitive,” Davidson said. ”The big spots in games, he likes to find a way. … He’s’ a guy that’s going to show up for work every day and you don’t have to worry about him.

”He’s very strong, strong on the puck, strong in loose-puck battles.”

Some other things to know as the Rangers head into their first practice sessions on Saturday:

BETWEEN THE PIPES: Henrik Lundqvist back for his 15th season after going 18-23-10, with career-worst of a 3.07 goals-against average and a .907 save-percentage. It also marked the first time he had fewer than 24 wins.

Alexandar Georgiev is coming off a solid season as the backup, going 14-13-4 with a 2.91 GAA. The 23-year-old could be challenged for the No. 2 spot by Igor Shesterkin, the Rangers’ fourth-round pick in the 2014 draft, who has come over from the KHL.

Davidson and Quinn both said they don’t have a target for games in mind for Lundqvist, but don’t want to overuse him.

”We want him to have a great season so that when we do make the playoffs he’s in a position where he’s fresh,” Quinn said.

LINE COMBINATIONS: Quinn said he plans on starting camp with Pavel Buchnevich joining the first line with Panarin and Mika Zibanejad. Filip Chytil will get a look at centering the second line with Chris Kreider on the left wing and possibly Kakko or fellow rookie Vitali Kravtsov on the other side.

Lias Andersson and Brett Howden will get chances in the middle on subsequent lines. Ryan Strome is likely to start out on a wing, but could also see some time at center.

O CAPTAIN, MY CAPTAIN: The Rangers haven’t had a captain since trading Ryan McDonagh at the deadline in 2018, and there doesn’t appear to be a standout favorite to fill that role.

”I think we’d like to have a captain but that’s something that’s going to evolve,” Quinn said. ”We’re in a situation where it’s going to happen and the captain will pick himself in a lot of ways.”

Lundqvist hoping Rangers can take ‘one big step’ forward

By Sean LeahySep 13, 2019, 8:05 AM EDT
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The second half of the 2018-19 NHL season took a toll on New York Rangers goaltender Henrik Lundqvist. As the losses piled up, which saw the team finish the season with only five wins in their final 20 games, the 37-year-old netminder had a difficult time dealing with the lack of success.

Two seasons without playoff hockey can wear on a player, especially one like Lundqvist, who has two years remaining on his contract and knows the opportunities to win a Stanley Cup are dwindling. So after the season the netminder took a month off to reflect and think about the good and the bad of the previous seven months.

“I remember last year the first two, three months I felt as good as I’ve felt in a few years,” Lundqvist told NBC Sports during the NHL Player Media Tour in Chicago last week. “I played at a level where I feel like I was making a difference, but then the second half was a lot tougher and we traded a couple of guys and the last couple of months was a battle, for sure, mentally. It was probably the toughest stretch of my career to try to deal with that. But you learn a lot about yourself. You try to look at the big picture, as well.”

The big picture included the youth in the Rangers’ system, which is highlighted by the likes of Vitali Kravtsov, Lias Andersson, Filip Chytil, and was boosted by the offseason additions of Adam Fox and No. 2 overall pick Kaapo Kakko. That bright future was mixed with the present day and general manager Jeff Gorton’s summer where he reeled in the biggest fish in free agency, Artemi Panarin, and acquired and signed defenseman Jacob Trouba. Suddenly, some sun began to squeak through the clouds.

“It was an important summer also for the organization,” Lundqvist said. “To see the signings, the draft picks, I think we’re all pretty exciting going into this year. I feel like we’re taking a big step in the right direction. I look forward to camp and seeing what we can do.”

[MORE: Can Henrik Lundqvist bounce back for Rangers?]

The topic of Lundqvist pulling a Ray Bourque and seeking a trade out of New York to pursue a Stanley Cup has been out there for some time, but his love for the organization and the city, and, of course, his no-move clause makes that a tough avenue to go down unless both the player and team are willing to sit down and discuss that option.

“It’s so hard to picture myself anywhere else,” Lundqvist said. “I know things can change so fast, the way the organization feels and how I feel. But so far it’s been hard for me to picture that. Even now coming back after the summer, coming back to New York and preparing for another season, go to practice rink, go to the Garden again, I don’t know if I would ever give that up. I take a lot of pride in being part of that organization. Again, some things you can’t control, it’s not in my control all the time either.”

Lundqvist will be 39 when his contract ends in 2021 and he said his body still feels good and his excitement level, when you factor in the Rangers’ offseason and the budding young stars on the roster, is higher than it’s been for a few seasons. For now he’s taking things year-by-year and his passion for the game remains strong.

After tasting the Stanley Cup Final in 2014, Lundqvist’s goal and motivation is to get back there and ultimately see another championship banner raised to the Garden rafters. He wants to be a Ranger “forever” and he wants that winning feeling to return as he’s witnessed how great of an atmosphere in New York City can be when its sports teams are doing well.

“But I think now during camp you have to sit down and talk about as a group what are our expectations now, what’s realistic for this team,” Lundqvist said.

And what’s realistic?

“I don’t know yet,” he said. “I think that’s something we have to discuss. I hope that we can take at least one big step in the right direction. We should. For the young guys to improve and develop you need to raise the bar. I think with the additions we have with the team we should definitely raise it. The question is, how high.”

MORE:
• ProHockeyTalk’s 2019 NHL free agency tracker
• Your 2019-20 NHL on NBC TV schedule

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Sean Leahy is a writer for Pro Hockey Talk on NBC Sports. Drop him a line at phtblog@nbcsports.com or follow him on Twitter @Sean_Leahy.