Jason Szenes for The New York Times
The Rangers are in Miami tonight to take on the Panthers, and can clinch a spot in the playoffs in the process. If the Rangers win tonight and the Jets lose in regulation to Washington, then the Rangers clinch at least the eighth seed. If the Rangers win tonight and the Islanders lose to Carolina, then the Rangers jump to the sixth seed, one point behind Toronto for the fifth seed. There’s still a lot of movement that can happen in the seeding, but a win and a Jets loss seals the deal for the postseason.
As for the Panthers, there’s nothing special to the systems they use. On the forecheck, the Panthers play your traditional 1-2-2 forecheck, which sends one forechecker deep to harass the breakout, and clogs the neutral zone with two guys up high and two defenseman back by the defensive blue line. They use the 1-2-2 as a lead based trap. In the defensive zone, the Panthers are like the Rangers in that they play a low zone collapse. On special teams, the Panthers are like most NHL teams, in the sense that they use an umbrella powerplay and a hybrid diamond/box penalty kill.
For more on Tortorella’s systems read here.
2012-2013 Records: Panthers (13-26-6), Rangers (24-17-4)
NYR Leading Scorer: Rick Nash (19-21-40) / Derek Stepan (16-24-40)
FLA Leading Scorer: Tomas Fleischmann (9-22-31)
NYR Goaltender: Henrik Lundqvist (40 GP, 2.08 GAA, .927 SV%)
FLA Goaltender: Jacob Markstrom (20 GP, 3.26 GAA, .902 SV%)
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Rangers Lines:
Ryane Clowe-Derick Brassard-Rick Nash
Carl Hagelin-Derek Stepan-Ryan Callahan
Taylor Pyatt-Brad Richards-Mats Zuccarello
Chris Kreider-Darroll Powe-Arron Asham
Ryan McDonagh-Dan Girardi
Michael Del Zotto-Anton Stralman
John Moore-Steve Eminger
Henrik Lundqvist
Scratches/Injuries: Mike Sauer (concussion), Marc Staal (eye), Brian Boyle (knee), Matt Gilroy (healthy), Roman Hamrlik (healthy)
Broadcast Info: MSG+, 7:30pm
Torts’ post-game interview from Sunday:
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