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Latest injury report and availability update: New York Rangers vs Vancouver Canucks
The Canucks have 13 power-play goals
The Rangers have 11. Vancouver also has two short-handed goals, one fewer than New York's three.
Rogers Arena, the line and the season series
The game is played at Rogers Arena in Vancouver, where the Canucks are 1-8-0 this season. ESPN lists the Rangers at minus 225 with a total of 6.5 goals.
The teams meet twice in the regular season, and the Rangers won the first game. Manny Malhotra coaches Vancouver and Mike Sullivan coaches New York.
Together the two teams score 5.75 goals per game, a little below the 6.5 total. The Canucks give up 4.5 per game and the Rangers 2.8, so the goals against are the numbers to follow.
Puck drop at Rogers Arena is at 6:00 p.m. PT, 9:00 p.m. ET, 8:00 p.m. CT and 03:00 in Madrid. ESPN+ has the national stream, and MSG Sportsnet carries the Rangers' local broadcast. Stay with VAVEL for confirmed lineups, period-by-period scoring, Fox and Pettersson's stats and the final box score.
The numbers behind the matchup
The biggest gap is on defense. Vancouver has allowed 90 goals, 4.5 per game, on 609 shots, which is 30.5 shots against per game. New York has allowed 56 goals, 2.8 per game, on 528 shots, or 26.4 per game.
Faceoffs lean to the Rangers, who win 54.3 percent against 47.1 for the Canucks, who have won 499 of 1,059 draws. Penalty minutes are close, 204 for Vancouver and 198 for New York.
The Rangers are close to even on shots, 515 for and 528 against. The Canucks are well below, with 435 for and 609 against.
Vancouver's penalty minute leaders are Paul Cotter with 27 and Luke Schenn with 23. New York's are J.T. Miller with 31 and Will Cuylle with 26.
Where both teams stand
The Rangers are third in ESPN's Metropolitan Division table with 11 wins. Carolina leads with 15 wins and New Jersey has 14. Washington has 10, the Islanders eight, and Pittsburgh and Columbus seven each.
The Canucks are last in the Pacific with three wins. Edmonton leads the division with 14 wins and Vegas has 13. Anaheim has 10, Seattle nine, San Jose and Calgary eight each, and Los Angeles five.
Vancouver is 11 wins behind Edmonton, and no other team in the division has fewer than five.
Injury report: long lists on both sides
Vancouver lists four players. Thatcher Demko is on injured reserve after hip surgery, Filip Chytil (shoulder) and Mackenzie MacEachern are on injured reserve, and defenseman Tom Willander is day-to-day with a lower-body injury.
New York lists five. Igor Shesterkin is out after knee surgery. Defensemen Alberts Smits and Sean Durzi are on injured reserve, and forwards Joe Veleno and Aidan Thompson are as well.
These are the entries on ESPN's report this morning, so the final lineups come from the teams shortly before puck drop.
Goaltending is a major storyline
Both clubs have a goalie on injured reserve. Thatcher Demko is out with a hip injury for Vancouver, and Igor Shesterkin is out with a knee injury for New York. Shesterkin had posted a 1.79 goals-against average and a .927 save percentage before the injury.
For the Canucks, Leevi Merilainen has a .889 save percentage and 3.41 goals-against average, with two wins. Kevin Lankinen is at .808 and 6.03, with one win.
For the Rangers, Dylan Garand has six wins, a .905 save percentage, a 2.48 goals-against average and one shutout. Joonas Korpisalo has a .931 save percentage and a 2.01 goals-against average. The Rangers' team save percentage is .906 against .858 for Vancouver. Garand's six wins alone are twice the three that Vancouver has as a team, and all three belong to Merilainen and Lankinen.
The Rangers have won four of five
New York is 4-1 in its last five games.
The Rangers beat St. Louis 3-1 and Philadelphia 3-2 at home, won 4-3 at Seattle, lost 3-1 at Edmonton and finished with a 3-1 win at Calgary. They allowed no more than three goals in any game and gave up one goal in two of the wins.
They scored 3, 3, 4, 1 and 3, an average of 2.8 goals a game. Their latest result was a road win against Calgary, and they come to Vancouver off that.
The Canucks have lost five straight
Vancouver's last five games were all defeats.
The Canucks lost 4-2 to Toronto, 5-4 to Anaheim, 6-2 at Winnipeg, 4-2 at Edmonton and 3-1 to Philadelphia. Three of those games were at Rogers Arena. They scored 2, 4, 2, 2 and 1 goals in the five games and allowed 4, 5, 6, 4 and 3.
The Anaheim game was the closest, a one-goal loss, and the Winnipeg game was the widest, by four goals. Vancouver averaged 2.2 goals scored and 4.4 against in that stretch, and it did not score more than four in any game.
Adam Fox and Alexis Lafreniere lead the Rangers
New York has scored 59 goals in 20 games, 2.95 per game. Adam Fox leads the team with 22 points and 20 assists. Alexis Lafreniere has nine goals, the top number on either roster, and 20 points with 11 assists.
Mika Zibanejad has 13 assists and 18 points. Fox has a plus-3 rating, behind Vladislav Gavrikov and Eeli Tolvanen, who both sit at plus-5. Tye Kartye has seven goals, and Pavel Dorofeyev, Oliver Bjorkstrand and Gabe Perreault have six each. J.T. Miller has 10 assists and leads the team with 31 penalty minutes.
The Rangers take 25.8 shots per game and score on 11.5 percent of them. Five New York skaters have at least six goals. Vancouver has three: Boeser, Lekkerimaki and Ohgren.
Pettersson and Boeser lead a Canucks offense scoring 2.8 goals a game
Vancouver has scored 56 goals in 20 games, or 2.8 per game, and the work is shared by a few players. Elias Pettersson leads the team in points with 20 and in assists with 16. Brock Boeser and Jonathan Lekkerimaki each have seven goals. Boeser has 17 points with 10 assists, and Lekkerimaki has 15 points with eight assists.
Filip Hronek has 12 assists and 13 points from the blue line. Liam Ohgren has six goals, and Jake DeBrusk and Max Sasson have five each.
The Canucks have 13 power-play goals, two more than the Rangers. They shoot 12.9 percent, but they only fire 21.8 shots per game.
Rangers visit Canucks in Vancouver, puck drop at 6:00 p.m. PT
Welcome to VAVEL's live coverage of New York Rangers at Vancouver Canucks from Rogers Arena. Puck drop is at 6:00 p.m. PT, which is 9:00 p.m. ET and 03:00 in Madrid.
The New York Rangers are 11-8-1 and 3-6-1 on the road. The Vancouver Canucks are 3-16-1 and 1-8-0 at home. They have lost five straight. That leaves New York with 23 standings points and Vancouver with seven. ESPN lists the Rangers as the favorite at minus 225 with the total at 6.5 goals.
These two teams met once already this season and the Rangers won. We will follow every goal, penalty and line change from the first faceoff.
Here is the latest pregame availability and injury report ahead of New York Rangers vs Vancouver Canucks at Rogers Arena (ESPN+).
Vancouver Canucks injury report: Guillaume Brisebois (D) - Injured Reserve; Mackenzie MacEachern (LW) - Injured Reserve; Thatcher Demko (G) - Injured Reserve.
New York Rangers injury report: Alberts Smits (D) - Injured Reserve; Sean Durzi (D) - Injured Reserve; Igor Shesterkin (G) - Injured Reserve; Joe Veleno (C) - Injured Reserve.