The New York Rangers have now lost two out of their last three games, which led to some major lineup changes from Peter Laviolette.
After completely blowing up the lines in the beginning of November, Laviolette decided to switch back to the offensive lines he originally had to start the season.
Chris Kreider-Mika Zibanejad-Reilly Smith
Artemi Panarin-Vincent Trocheck-Alexis Lafrenière
Will Cuylle-Filip Chytil-Kaapo Kakko
Adam Edstrom-Sam Carrick-Jimmy Vesey
There were also some tweaks made to the defensive pairs during Wednesday’s practice, marking yet another lineup transformation.
K’Andre Miller -Adam Fox
Ryan Lindgren -Jacob Trouba
Zac Jones -Braden Schneider
Laviolette went into his decision about why he decided to shake up the lineup once again.
“The way we were playing to start the season, kind of got derailed by a game or two, so we made a change and I wanted to give it a little bit of time to see how it looked,” Laviolette said. “After the game last night, we made a decision to come back and look at it this way again.”
By the way the Rangers were playing, a change was clearly necessary and we’ll have to see if going back with what is familiar will ultimately help propel New York in a positive direction.
The Rangers are set to play the San Jose Sharks on Thursday night and expect to see these line combinations in this upcoming matchup.