With five of their eight first-round draft picks from the 2017-2020 drafts now in the lineup, the Rangers’ future appears to be shaping up nicely. But that doesn’t mean coach David Quinn isn’t still trying to win games in the here and now.
So as the Rangers prepared Monday to host games Tuesday and Thursday at Madison Square Garden against the Pittsburgh Penguins, Quinn shook up his forward lines at Monday’s practice by putting Colin Blackwell back on the line with Artemi Panarin and Ryan Strome. Doing that bumped Kaapo Kakko down to the Kid Line, with Alexis Lafreniere and Filip Chytil, and that in turn dropped Vitali Kravtsov, who made his NHL debut in Saturday’s 3-2 shootout loss to Buffalo, down to the fourth line.