The NY Rangers and St. Louis Blues are playing live on the NHL opening night schedule on Thursday and New York is travelling to STL for the matchup at the Scottrade Center and the team comes in after winning the east last year and losing the Stanley Cup and now Ryan McDonagh and the blueshirts will be looking to start the season on a high note and the matchup starts up past 8 pm ET.
The Rangers lost their last preseason game to the Devils and now they start off on the road against the Blues. The team has the Blue Jackets next and McDonagh comes in as the new captain with Ryan Callahan gone. The team also has Martin St. Louis back after he helped spark the team to the finals and he is an alternate captain and the Rangers have very high expectations for this season. The Rangers made it to the finals for the first time in 20 years and now they have the chance to try and do it again.
Henrik Lundqvist returns as one of the best goalies in the league and he had a fantastic playoff run and now he wants more. King Henrik was great in the playoffs and now he comes back even stronger and the team is looking to get off to a good start this year. The Blues come in after losing to the Wild in their last preseason game and they have the Calgary Flames coming to town next and now Brian Elliott comes in looking to solidify things in net for the Blues.
The Blues and Rangers each made big trades last season and the one with St. Louis to New York was better than Ryan Miller, as the Blues were eventually beaten. The team allowed Miller to go and now they matchup with the Rangers to open things up, with the Blues taking on the Blueshirts and the team from St. Louis taking on the player with the same last name. The Rangers schedule is not as bad as usual to start the season, as MSG is finally all fixed up, but they still open on the road.
The team has two games away from MSG and then they will open with the game on TV from NHL Network and that will be against the Toronto Maple Leafs. The team comes in after that with three more home games against the Islanders, Hurricanes and Sharks before a short trip to New Jersey to play the Devils. The month finishes out with a rematch against the Canadiens after playing the team in the playoffs and then they have the Wild at home.
The Rangers started off against the Flyers in the playoffs and then they had a very tough series with the Penguins that saw the team come back from 3-1 down. The Rangers had never done it quite like that before and after two seven game series in a row, the team played six with the Canadiens and won. The Rangers went down 3-0 against the Kings in the finals after some bad calls and they ended up losing to the team in the Stanley Cup finals. Now they try to get back.
Check here for the NY Rangers and St. Louis Blues live coverage.