Rangers-Avs at MSG. Projected lineup, more

The Rangers, who have won three straight, skated here at MSG this morn, all but Marc Staal, whose wife Lindsay, gave birth to their first child, a daughter, Anna Veralyn.  But the red-hot Avalanche, who won 2-1 in New Jersey last night, did not skate, so not sure of their lines and d-pairs or if two former NYR will play: P.A. Parenteau and John Mitchell, will play.

So the NYR lineup, which has remained constant for a month, will be:

Kreider-Stepan-Nash;  Pouliot-Brassard-Zuke; Hagelin-Richards-Callahan; Boyle-Moore-Carcillo;  McDonagh-Girardi, Staal-Stralman and JMoore-Klein. Lundqvist (20-18-3, 2.46, .917) will be in goal.

I wrote about Klein's transition, the PK, the Olympians and more for newsday.com, all of which should be posted shortly and will be in the early editions of the paper as well. Game story and updates during the game, to come, of course.

We're told Semyon Varlamov (28-9-5, 2.43, .925) will be in goal for the Avs (36-14-5, won five of six) and that Paul Stastny may be sidelined. We'll see the lines and d-pairs during warmups, so hang in here and on Twitter @stevezipay, as usual, for news and commentary.