Vitali Kravtsov officially made his NHL debut Saturday night in Buffalo.
The 21-year-old winger replaced Phillip Di Giuseppe in the Rangers squad and appeared on the third row, alongside Alexis Lafreniere and Filip Chytil. Kravtsov has been with the Blueshirts for just over a week since he went through the NHL’s COVID-19 protocols after his KHL Traktor team left the playoffs in early March.
“He has been training well, he has enough time with us here,” said coach David Quinn about why Saturday was the right time for Kravtsov’s debut. “I thought it was a good time to put it in.”
With the new children’s line, which now has an average age of 20, the fourth line will be composed by Colin Blackwell, Kevin Rooney and Julien Gauthier.
Kravtsov, Rangers’ ninth overall pick in 2018, comes from an impressive 2020-21 KHL season, in which he scored 16 goals and eight assists in 49 games. He also added two goals and two assists in five playoff games.
His promotion from the Rangers taxi squad on Saturday means he will take a maximum of $ 925,000.
“The first thing you want them to do is have fun,” said Quinn of his message to Kravtsov. “There will be nerves. They will leave quickly as soon as you start taking turns. … Just play your game, don’t try to do too much, do the things that brought you here and enjoy the moment. “
Goalkeeper Igor Shesterkin made his fifth game in a period of six games for the second time in his career at Rangers.
Rangers have scored at least 62 goals in a month (March) for the first time since December 1995.
In addition, Mika Zibanejad, Ryan Strome and Adam Fox each scored at least 20 points during the month, just the sixth time in the franchise’s history that three players scored 20 or more points in the same month. The last trio of players to do so were Mark Messier, Brian Leetch and Pat Verbeek in 1995.
There are four Rangers with 30 or more points this season (Strome, Fox, Artemi Panarin and Pavel Buchnevich). Rangers are one of only three NHL teams with four players to add at least 30 points this season, along with Lightning and Jets.
Among 107 NHL players who have accumulated at least 70 minutes of time on shorthanded ice this season, Ryan Lindgren (1.96), Buchnevich (2.80) and Fox (3.44) came in first, second and fourth, respectively , in power-play goals against 60 minutes of power-play time.
Lindgren is on the ice just for a power-play goal against this season, while Fox is two and Buchnevich three. In 31 of the last 32 games, Lindgren was not on the ice for a power-play goal against and recorded a team of 80:39 shorthanded time on the ice over that period.