RANGERS VS STARS GAME DAY PREVIEW 11/19

HOME STREAK ON THE LINE AS RANGERS HOST STARS AT THE GARDEN

New York Rangers (10-8-2) vs Dallas Stars (11-7-2)

Madison Square Garden, NYC

TONIGHT 7:00 PM TV: MSG, FSW+ RADIO: ESPN-NY

The Rangers come into tonight's game with the Dallas Stars after a 4-2 win over the Florida Panthers on Saturday night giving them their 10th win of the season and 5th in a row at Madison Square Garden. During their home winning streak, the Rangers are outscoring opponents by a 19-9 margin and it is the NHL's longest win streak of the season.

Chris Kreider led the way offensively, with a pair of first-period assists and a third-period power-play goal that gave the Rangers the comfort of a two-goal lead down the stretch. Vlad Namestnikov broke a 2-2 tie in the second, Brendan Smith scored in his return to the lineup, and Filip Chytil scored for the third straight game while fellow rookie Lias Andersson picked up his first point of the season.

The win was Henrik Lundqvist's seventh of the season, 25th career over Florida and Number 438 of his career, moving him past Jacques Plante into seventh place all alone on the NHL's all-time wins list.

Yesterday the Rangers swapped forwards to and from Hartford with Vinny Lettieri who saw mostly 4th line duties head to the Wolf Pack while Steven Fogarty makes his way to the Garden for tonight's matchup against Dallas.

Mats Zuccarello who missed the win against Florida due to a nagging groin strain that he has been battling for the past few weeks is still questionable for tonight's contest. The other lineup question is the status of defenseman Brady Skjei who was a healthy scratch in favor of Brendan Smith.

Henrik Lundqvist is once again expected to get the home start for the Blueshirts.

RANGERS TEAM LEADERS: Chris Kreider; goals 11, points 18, Mika Zibanejad; assists 10.

The Dallas Stars enter tonight's match up with their second of back to back games riding a 6-2 victory over the Islanders on Sunday afternoon.

Dallas saw the return of it's top line of Radulov, Jaime Benn, and Tyler Seguin. Seguin recorded a goal and two assists, Benn added three assists for his first three-point game of the season and the trio combined for nine points against the Isles.

STARS TEAM LEADERS: Tyler Seguin; assists 12, points 17, Jamie Benn; 7 goals.

This is the first of two meetings of teh season between the Rangers & Stars and the only game at the Garden. Last season Dallas bested the Rangers in the series taking a 2-1 shootout win at MSG and a regulation win in Dallas by the same 2-1 score. Ben Bishop and Kari Lehtonen split the win for the Stars while Henrik Lundqvist  and Ondrej Pavelec took the losses for New York.

RANGERS ALL-TIME RECORD vs STARS
Overall. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74-41-22-3 (173 pts)
Home Record. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39-19-11-2 (91 pts)
Road Record. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35-22-11-1 (82 pts)
Goals For. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 481
Goals Against. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 399
Shutouts. . . . . . . . 11, last – 12/15/2016 (2-0; Lundqvist/Raanta**)
**Only combined shutout by two goaltenders in franchise history

Last Ranger Win at MSG. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1/5/2016 (6-2)
Last Ranger Win at Dallas. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12/15/2016 (2-0)
Last Star Win at MSG. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12/11/2017 (2-1 SO)
Last Star Win at Dallas. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2/05/2018 (2-1)
2017-2018 MATCH UP
2017-12-11 NYR DAL 1-2 L SO
2018-02-05 NYR @ DAL 1-2 L