Battle Of Hudson covers the Rangers and Devils, who's intense rivalry heated up in the 90's. With fresh faces added, they battle for supremacy in NYC and NJ..
Filip Chytil suffered a setback in practice for the Rangers. With only a couple of players remaining near the conclusion, Chytil was in pain on the ice for at least five minutes. Zac Jones and Jake Leschyshyn, along with some of the training staff, had to assist him off the ice.
A very scary moment at the end of #NYR morning skate.
I didn't see how Chytil initially went down, but he was in pain on the ice for what felt like 5-7 minutes.
Zac Jones and Jake Leschyshyn along with some members of the training staff had to help him get off the ice.
Initially, there was no indication by any reporters on what caused the injury to Chytil. However, it was reported by multiple sources that it’s related to the previous injury he suffered on Nov. 2.
Filip Chytil suffered a setback from the upper-body injury he has been trying to recover from. He has been evaluated and will continue to be evaluated. He is at home in New York.
FYI: NYR have not officially called Chytil's injury a concussion, have only said upper-body injury. https://t.co/OH0pbme3oZ
Have an update now: The fears about Chytil have been realized. Heard from a source it’s a setback directly related to his previous head injury. There’s obviously a hockey side to it, but concerns about Chytil’s well-being are at the forefront of everyone’s mind. #NYRhttps://t.co/01YMCQ2XLl
Obviously, Chytil’s well-being comes first before anything else. It was a big concern when he returned from Czechia to participate in team practice. Even skating in a no-contact red jersey couldn’t prevent another upper-body injury. As USA Today’s Vince Mercogliano asserted in his tweet above, the most important thing is Chytil’s health. If, as feared, it’s a concussion, that would be the fifth of his career.
At this point, it’s hard to imagine the Rangers letting Chytil return this season. The 24-year-old center’s hockey career is in jeopardy. I never want to consider such doomsday scenarios. However, here we are. You can only hope for the best moving forward for Chytil. We’re talking about his livelihood.
Selected by the Rangers with the 21st pick in 2017, Chytil is in his sixth season. After posting a goal and two assists in a nine-game cameo during 2017-18, he scored double digits in goals over his first two full seasons.
Following a pair of disappointing seasons in which he posted an identical eight goals with 14 assists for 22 points, Chytil set new career highs in goals (22), assists (23), points (45), and plus/minus (15) in 2022-23. That followed up a strong 2022 postseason. He had seven goals and two assists for nine points while centering the Kid Line with fellow first round picks Alexis Lafreniere and Kaapo Kakko. They played a pivotal role in helping the Rangers reach the Eastern Conference Final.
In a first round defeat to the Devils, Chytil tallied a goal and three helpers for four points. Rewarded by the Rangers with an extension worth an average cap hit of $4.44 million through 2027, he’s in the first year of that contract. He registered six assists in 10 games before suffering a concussion on an accidental collision with Hurricanes forward Jesper Fast. Chytil is on the long-term injured reserve (LTIR).
With it looking grim, the Rangers probably should plan ahead without Chytil. After waiving Nick Bonino, they’re in the market for a third line center. Jonny Brodzinski can’t be asked to fill that role. Barclay Goodrow is the matchup center on the checking line that Rangers coach Peter Laviolette likes to use versus opponents’ top scoring lines.
It’s definitely been a tough couple of days for the organization. Bonino cleared waivers. The Rangers won’t assign him to the Harford Wolf Pack until following the All-Star break. Now, it looks like they’ll be without Chytil for the remainder of the season, including playoffs. A possibility before the latest setback.
The Rangers host the Golden Knights at 7 EST later tonight.
A day later, Nick Bonino didn’t participate in team practice. The reason was personal. As it turned out, the Rangers are set to place Bonino on waivers.
Signed last summer by Rangers Team President and general ganager Chris Drury, the well-respected veteran pivot was reunited with coach Peter Laviolette. He also played for him with the Predators between 2017-18 and 2019-20.
Bonino was brought in to play a checking role for the Rangers. Initially, that’s how he was utilized. He anchored the fourth line between Barclay Goodrow and Jimmy Vesey. For a while, they were an effective trio who spent time in the opponents’ end while playing well defensively.
When Filip Chytil went down with a concussion on Nov. 2 that altered the lineup. Laviolette chose to have Bonino move up to center the third line. He played with Will Cuylle and Blake Wheeler. Eventually, Wheeler was moved up to the first line to play with Mika Zibanejad and Chris Kreider. Prior to getting hurt on Nov. 27, Kaapo Kakko spent some time on the third line.
After some initial success, the third line struggled to contribute offensively. Bonino was miscast in a top nine role. He didn’t have the skating or speed to make it work. Even after Jonny Brodzinski provided a spark, they weren’t doing enough to be considered a third line. The injuries to Chytil and Kakko hurt the Rangers’ scoring depth. Even with Kakko back in the lineup, the bottom six forwards remain a concern.
When the Rangers lost to the Kings on Jan. 20, Laviolette scratched Bonino. Tyler Pitlick replaced him on the fourth line. Following the game, Laviolette indicated that he liked how the trio of Goodrow, Vesey, and Pitlick played. That might’ve been a hint that something was up.
Bonino returned to the lineup the last two games. In a 3-2 overtime loss to the Sharks on Jan. 23, Bonino was on for two goals against in the third period. That included losing a faceoff – leading to Ryan Carpenter tying the game. Even though he played over 13 minutes, it was another game where he struggled.
We know Lavi thinks highly of Bonino- & for good reason. He's a team-first guy who willingly sacrifices his body & does the grunt work. But organizationally, it was hard to deny the facts. He ranks last for #NYR in just about every analytical category & lacks foot speed they need https://t.co/SNW6JxOMfB
The decision to waive Bonino wasn’t an easy one. A gritty player who led all Rangers’ forwards in blocked shots with 78, he always put in an honest effort. However, very bad puck possession metrics were hard to ignore.
“He met with Chris Drury this morning… It’s the decision that was made… I’ve worked with Nick for a quite a few years going back to Nashville. I can’t speak enough about him as a person. He’s just a good guy, a good teammate. It’s a tough day,” Laviolette told reporters following practice.
In 45 games as a Ranger, Bonino finished with one goal and four assists for five points and a minus-12 rating. He won 51.0 percent of faceoffs and served a role on the penalty kill. A good guy who’s played 868 career games, Bonino could be claimed by another team. If not, he’d be assigned to the Wolf Pack in the American Hockey League (AHL).
No matter what you thought about Bonino, it’s a tough day. Any time a high character player is told they’re no longer needed, it isn’t something to celebrate. You wouldn’t know it by some of the reactions on social media. Have a little class and respect.
As far as the lineup goes, Laviolette had Wheeler back with Zibanejad and Kreider. Kakko skated with Brodzinski and Cuylle. Filip Chytil skated in a red no-contact jersey. He subbed in on the third line. A hint that if he’s cleared to return, perhaps a Chytil, Cuylle, Kakko trio could comprise the third line. We won’t know until after the All-Star break.
As expected, Goodrow centered the checking line with Vesey and Pitlick. The Rangers should be lining up this way when they host the Golden Knights on Friday.
Kreider-Zibanejad-Wheeler
Panarin-Trocheck-Lafreniere
Cuylle-Brodzinski-Kakko
Vesey-Goodrow-Pitlick
Regarding the defense, there’ll be one change. Laviolette’s decided to split up Ryan Lindgren and Adam Fox. Instead, Erik Gustafsson will pair up with Fox. Lindgren will shift to the third pair to work with Braden Schneider.
By making this move, it appears Laviolette wants to see more puck possession from the top pair. Gustafsson certainly checks the boxes due to his skating and offensive instincts. The Rangers don’t spend enough time in opponents’ ends. Maybe they can help Zibanejad and Kreider find their game. They’re still together despite less than ideal numbers.
For now, Laviolette will keep K’Andre Miller and Jacob Trouba together. They remain the Rangers’ matchup pair that draws most of the tough assignments. Despite a noticeable dip in their play, they’re being given more time to see if they can rediscover the form that worked earlier in the season.
The Rangers play two games before the All-Star break. After hosting Vegas tomorrow night, they’ll take on the Senators on Saturday night. It’s important for them to get things moving in the right direction. We’ll see how the lineup changes go.
I was hoping not to have to write again before this weekend at least when the All-Star break was upon us unless some major news broke. In fact, two pieces of major news have broken in the last two days on polar opposites of the spectrum. It’s hard to even know where to begin although if I begin with the bad news first, nobody’s gonna care about the good of GM Tom Fitzgerald being extended. Plus, the news of that (conveniently) dropped yesterday before the crap hit the fan on the long-whispered about Hockey Canada juniors scandal with major implications for the Devils on the ice and several individuals off of it.
So, staying with a chronological order yesterday the Devils announced both a multi-year extension of GM Tom Fitzgerald and a new title of president of hockey operations. Clearly the team’s improvement on the ice the last two years after a 2.5 year rebuild when Fitz first took the job earned him additional job security and stature in the organization. I’m not gonna lie, haven’t even watched the presser with Fitz and co-owner David Blitzer yet although FF’ing through YouTube I noticed it began after the ten minute mark, so it’s actually twenty-four minutes long as a PSA.
From what little I have read on Twitter it doesn’t seem like anything else noteworthy or unexpected was said by either party, apart from the obligatory question on head coach Lindy Ruff where Fitz re-emphasized his belief and trust in him. There really isn’t much to say, for my criticism of Fitz not turning up until yesterday to answer the questions (and irony of ironies at this being what brings Fitz back in front of the cameras) by and large he has done a good job to this point, in spite of some more recent moves not working out as well as could be hoped for at the moment. He has earned the right to see this through a bit longer though, no beef with any of that.
Now, let’s get to the…news that I’ve alternately been wary of and yet hoping it eventually does hit the fan. Whispers started a few days ago that something might be coming down when fellow NHL players Dillon Dube and Carter Hart were both given leave of absences from their teams over the weekend, since both were among the players on the 2018 Canadian junior team that has been involved in a sexual assault scandal. We have not just one, but two such players in breakout center Mike McLeod and defenseman Cal Foote, who were both absent from a team function yesterday and practice today before an ominous Tweet confirmed what we all feared:
While officially the players haven’t been named, reports are that five players have been told to turn themselves into the London, Ontario police to be charged with sexual assault. Given that McLeod, Foote, Hart, Dube and overseas player Alex Formenton have all been put on leave by their teams in the last few days, it’s as obvious as the sun in the sky which five players have been named in these reports. Not only do I hope that these players will receive a just punishment if it’s proven they were involved in this or any other type of heinous crime, but I also hope that Hockey Canada is made to be punished for their attempts to cover it up. This alleged incident happened in 2018, and we’re only finally getting the wheels of justice going in early 2024.
I don’t even want to go through the motions of ‘innocent until proven guilty’, even though false accusations are possible and have happened before. Still, something like this which has been investigated for multiple years and now finally charged, you gotta think there’s something to it, especially with all the apparent money and time Hockey Canada spent trying to keep this scandal under wraps. As we’ve seen, there’s an ugly side of hockey culture out there that intersects with normal jockbro culture and incidents like this or the Kyle Beach scandal are a sad inevitability when you have this type of behavior covered up and dismissed for far too long.
I don’t even want to get into semantics over which of these players were active participants, and who was merely an accessory, if anyone – to me everyone is pretty much equally culpable in this kind of thing whether you were an active participant during the assault, helped cover it up or just didn’t say anything at all. This isn’t the kind of thing where you deserve any commendation for not ratting out your friends, this is, you’re either bigger than that or practically as guilty as they are.
In terms of the Devils themselves, I don’t even want to discuss it – but you can’t sugarcoat the fact that this is going to hurt the team on the ice. Due to multiple long-term injuries on our blueline, Foote suddenly was thrust into the top six whereas odds were he was just going to be another AHL player once we signed him this offseason while McLeod was in the middle of a breakout season, one of the few guys overachieving on this Devils team.
Of course, none of that matters in the grand scheme of things but the team isn’t going to stop playing, and at this point the Devils have to prepare as if McLeod and Foote are no longer a part of the team. Neither one is under contract after this season, so it makes it easier to move on in case of convictions – or even just a protracted trial where this is hanging over everyone’s heads until a verdict. Hopefully there is a speedy and correct resolution for all of this mess, the wait has already been too long for the victim to have her day in court.
One step forward. Two steps back. That sums up how the New York Rangers have been going for the last six weeks. After coming back to defeat the Anaheim Ducks on Jan. 21, they blew a two-goal lead in the third period – falling to the San Jose Sharks 3-2 in overtime on Tuesday night in San Jose.
It concluded a disappointing 1-2-1 road trip. The only win came thanks to a third period rally over the Ducks. In the three losses, the Rangers scored only four goals. They opened the four-game road trip with a 5-1 loss to the Vegas Golden Knights. Then, they were defeated 2-1 by the Los Angeles Kings. Aside from a four goal barrage against the Ducks, the Rangers’ offense was underwhelming.
The continued over reliance on the Artemi Panarin, Vincent Trocheck, Alexis Lafreniere line at even strength isn’t enough to win consistently. Neither is throwing their eggs all in one basket when it comes to the first power play unit that features Panarin, Trocheck, Mika Zibanejad, Chris Kreider, and Adam Fox.
Although they scored twice against Anaheim, the power play has become stale. They went 0-for-3 against the Sharks last night. That included a man-advantage late in regulation with the game tied at two. The Rangers failed to register a shot. It was mostly the top unit that failed to capitalize on a penalty Jimmy Vesey drew with under six minutes left in regulation. There was too much passing and not enough shooting. The same problems that plagued the power play last season.
When opponents know what’s coming, it makes it easier to defend against the Rangers’ five-on-four. The biggest difference is Panarin’s willingness to take open shots. His nine power-play goals are tied with both Kreider and Trocheck for the team lead. However, there’s still too many instances when they tend to force passes across for Zibanejad in the left dot. With four right-handed shots, they can get predictable.
It doesn’t help matters that Zibanejad can’t seem to hit the net. His struggles are hurting the team. For the season, he has 15 goals in 46 games. The breakdown is seven at even strength, seven on the power play, and one shorthanded. That he has such a low number when the Rangers play at even strength is a big concern. Zibanejad needs to do a better job at five-on-five. He’s counted on for production. Unless something is wrong, it doesn’t make sense that he’s not scoring goals.
Throughout the season, Rangers coach Peter Laviolette has stuck with his line combinations. It’s only during games that he’ll occasionally adjust the lines if things aren’t going well. Still without Filip Chytil (concussion), who’s set to return to New York after progressing back home in the Czech Republic, the Rangers have had less offense from the third and fourth lines. It’s challenging to score goals when Nick Bonino is playing mostly as the third center while Jonny Brodzinski is anchoring the fourth line.
Laviolette prefers to use Bonino’s line for matchups against opponents’ best scoring units. It’s usually Bonino between Barclay Goodrow and Vesey. However, Laviolette tried Tyler Pitlick in place of Bonino against the Kings.
Brodzinski plays with Will Cuylle and Blake Wheeler. They’re really supposed to be the third line, but that’s not how they’re used. The trio were effective in the win over the Ducks thanks to their willingness to create chances off the forecheck. Cuylle had a big game-tying goal on a deflection of a Jacob Trouba shot. He plays with lots of energy and physicality. Something the Rangers need more of in an otherwise vanilla lineup. There isn’t enough size or grit. That makes them vulnerable against tougher opponents.
After making an impact on Sunday night with his eighth goal and drawing a penalty that led to Panarin’s game-winner, Cuylle only received 11 shifts and 9:52 of ice time against the Sharks. Make it make sense. He’s a player who consistently plays hard. Cuylle isn’t shy about throwing his weight around. He leads the Rangers in hits with 125, which also paces all NHL rookies this season. He’s a player who plays aggressively on the forecheck and makes things happen. Why isn’t he playing more? That’s best left for the coach to explain.
At one point, Cuylle was part of the second power play unit. He was a good fit due to his willingness to crash the net. If he’s open, he’ll take the shot. Why should Wheeler play over him? He’s clearly at the end of his career. That isn’t a critique. He plays an honest game. But the wheels aren’t there anymore. Wheeler should just be used at even strength as a role player.
There’s also the question of why won’t Laviolette consider changing the power play. Zibanejad isn’t getting it done. How about making a switch. Move Lafreniere onto the first unit. He supplies more grit and is another lefty shot who can one-time the puck from the right side. It would be a new wrinkle for opponents to deal with.
Move Zibanejad down to the second unit. It could provide better balance. They’re not used enough. Perhaps it could provide a spark for Zibanejad, who at times tends to overthink things. Erik Gustafsson stays on the point. Keep Brodzinski on it. Kaapo Kakko and Cuylle would fill it out. Featuring Zibanejad would mean not having the top unit out for so long. They overstay their shifts. A similar issue they had under former coach Gerard Gallant.
While it’s easy to point out most of the success for the Rangers’ second ranked power play (28.1 percent) is due to the established stars, they haven’t been as effective lately. It can’t always be the same players doing most of the heavy lifting. There needs to be a better balance. There’s enough time left in the season to fix it. The Rangers can’t succeed unless the scoring depth improves.
There’s also the defense. It’s easy to see that K’Andre Miller hasn’t been the same player since the New Year. He’s committed too many mistakes and been caught on for goals against. He and Trouba have had their games slip. Trouba had a brutal night at San Jose. He turned over pucks and was bailed out by Igor Shesterkin.
Maybe Laviolette should consider altering his defensive pairs. Fox and Ryan Lindgren haven’t been consistent either. It might not hurt to try splitting the top four up. Gustafsson had a bad giveaway that led to a Nico Sturm goal early in the third period last night. The Sharks tied the game when one-time Ranger Ryan Carpenter tipped in a Jan Rutta shit off a faceoff.
Gustafsson has good possession numbers. However, he’s had a few hiccups recently. If he’s banged up, then they should sit him. Zac Jones can step in and play on the third pair with Braden Schneider. Jones can also fill in on the second power play unit.
There’s only two games left before the All-Star break. The Rangers host the Golden Knights this Friday, Jan. 26. They then visit the Ottawa Senators on Saturday, Jan. 27. Their next game won’t be until Feb. 5 versus the Colorado Avalanche.
It’s time for Laviolette to make some adjustments to his struggling team.
On a night that they fell behind by two goals in the first period, the Rangers rallied back for a 5-2 win over the Ducks in Anaheim. The victory halted a two-game skid that could’ve been more.
Usually, most of the accolades go to the team’s established stars. While they did receive power-play goals from Vincent Trocheck and Artemi Panarin, whose team-leading 28th proved to be the game-winner with less than six minutes remaining in the third period, it was the gritty play of Will Cuylle who provided the spark for the Rangers’ comeback win.
Even though they held a huge edge in attempts (79-36), the Rangers had issues getting shots through on Ducks’ backup goalie Lukas Dostal for the first two periods. Despite controlling most of the play, they only led 18-10 in shots after 40 minutes. They were able to change that in a strong final period that saw them outscore the Ducks four-zip and out-shoot them 15-8 to get a much needed victory.
None of it would’ve been possible without the determination of Cuylle, who got rewarded for his hustle. With the Rangers still trailing the Ducks 2-1 with less than 10 minutes to play, a good forechecking shift from Cuylle, Jonny Brodzinski, and Blake Wheeler led to Cuylle tying the game.
Cuylle was parked in front of Dostal when Jacob Trouba took a shot from the right point that Cuylle tipped in for the game-tying goal with 9:50 remaining in regulation. His eighth goal of the season was a critical one for a team that had lost six of their last eight games. They desperately needed a win against an inferior opponent that is one of the league’s worst teams.
“He was excellent all night,” Rangers coach Peter Laviolette told reporters following the game. “He’s moving his feet, he’s physical, he’s around the net, he’s getting to the net. We haven’t had enough of that presence around the net, so it’s been a topic of conversation. He’s battling all the time to get in there. He’s willing to pay the price to get there.”
It was also Cuylle’s hustle that drew a Mason McTavish tripping minor with under six minutes to go in a tie game. He drove to the net and was taken down. That led directly to Panarin, scoring the game deciding goal on the power play with 5:37 left in the contest.
After going 0 for 2 on the man-advantage, the Rangers got back in the game when Trocheck finished off a Chris Kreider pass in front to cut the Ducks’ lead to one with 2:02 left in the second period. The goal was set up by a smart dump in from Adam Fox. He sent a bank pass off the back boards that came right to Kreider, who fed Trocheck for the momentum turning power-play goal. Fox made a good read to get the Rangers back in it.
On their next five-on-four, it was again the combination of Kreider and Fox that netted positive results. After he received a pass up top, Fox found a wide open Panarin for a quick one-timer that gave the Rangers the lead. He snuck around the net to escape the Ducks’ penalty killers. That allowed Panarin enough room to score the go-ahead goal.
Less than two minutes later, Kreider took a Mika Zibanejad feed and steered in his own rebound past Dostal to make it 4-2. That was enough to get the victory. It came at a good time. Both the Flyers and Hurricanes lost on Sunday. The Rangers now have 60 points. That’s four more than the Flyers and five ahead of the Canes.
Jimmy Vesey added an empty netter with less than a minute left. It was his first goal since Jan. 4.
The Rangers scored five unanswered goals to earn the win. Igor Shesterkin (16 saves on 18 shots) wasn’t too busy. It was his 19th victory of the season.
The Ducks got a pair of Henrique goals in the first period to take a 2-0 lead. On the first one before a minute had gone by, K’Andre Miller got victimized when he was overaggressive on Troy Terry. That allowed Terry to slide the puck down to Leo Carlsson, who then found Henrique in front for his first goal of the game.
Henrique added his second when a Terry shot went off of Ryan Lindgren for a rebound that the former Devil squeezed in to give the Ducks a two-goal lead.
Before Cuylle tied the game in the third period, the Ducks had a McTavish goal overturned due to a successful coach’s challenge by Laviolette for offside. Had it counted, the Rangers would’ve been down 3-1 with less than 15 minutes remaining.
It’s a good thing they were successful. Alexis Lafreniere didn’t pick up McTavish on a rebound in front. Lafreniere has to do a better job defensively. Especially when he’s not scoring.
Erik Gustafsson returned after missing the last game. He played 15:55 while partnering with Braden Schneider. Zac Jones was a healthy scratch. Laviolette reinserted Nick Bonino for Tyler Pitlick.
Kaapo Kakko missed a few shifts in the second period, with Laviolette searching for offense. He only played 8:08. Kakko must get more ice time than that regardless of the game situation.
The Rangers conclude the four-game road trip when they visit the woeful Sharks on Tuesday night, Jan. 23. They can salvage a split after looking like they might fall to 0-3 before the furious third period rally against the Ducks last night.
When the New York Rangers were eliminated by the New Jersey Devils in the first round last year, the hammer dropped on coach Gerard Gallant for the disappointing seven-game series defeat.
Enough established players voiced their displeasure over the coach, which led to Gallant’s dismissal after two successful seasons. The first one included a run to the Eastern Conference Final when they lost to the Lightning. It was a winnable series. Similar to them blowing a 2-0 series lead against the Devils in 2022-23.
Even if you didn’t care for how Gallant ran the bench, he won plenty of games as Rangers coach. A combined 99-46-19 record translated to a .662 winning percentage. It was the way in which the Rangers lost to the Devils that stung. After taking the first two games in Newark, they lost four of the last five to lose in excruciating fashion. It didn’t help that they were uncompetitive in a forgettable 4-0 loss in Game 7 to end last season.
A lack of adjustments hurt Gallant’s case. It was similar to what happened against the Lightning the prior spring. He got out-coached by Jon Cooper, who made the necessary adjustments that helped his championship experienced team come back to take the series in six games. The Rangers also led two games to none before the Lightning stormed back to win four straight.
When expectations increase as they had last season, the pressure mounts. The Rangers decided to go all in by adding Vladimir Tarasenko and Patrick Kane. While Tarasenko had some good moments, a hobbled Kane struggled due to a bad hip that needed surgery last off-season. He’s resurfaced in Detroit, showing that he still has some magic left.
Unlike 2021-22, when Rangers Team President and GM Chris Drury acquired Frank Vatrano and Andrew Copp to fit into the top two lines, the big stars weren’t perfect fits. You could still argue that a banged up Kane was one of the best Rangers versus the Devils in last year’s first round series. If only Artemi Panarin and Mika Zibanejad showed up consistently. They weren’t the only Blueshirts who had a bad series. But they’re the top two forwards they have.
Fast forward to this season. Under new coach Peter Laviolette, the Rangers started out on fire. Led by a determined Panarin, who remains one of the game’s most dynamic scorers, the team vaulted to the top of the standings, even leading the league at one point. With Vincent Trocheck putting in a terrific season and Alexis Lafreniere meshing with Panarin, who’s scoring with regularity, they’ve carried the Rangers to first place in the Metropolitan Division.
However, there are issues that have crept up. They aren’t the same team. For over a month, they’ve struggled with consistency. The once solid defensive structure they had under Laviolette has disappeared. With both Zibanejad and Chris Kreider, who scored his 21st for the team’s only goal in an ugly 2-1 loss to the Los Angeles Kings last night – struggling to contribute at five-on-five, scoring has dried up. Adding Kaapo Kakko to the first line helps with puck possession and forechecking. He scored a goal and has had some other chances since returning on Jan. 14.
The problem is that there isn’t much else. The bottom six forwards aren’t scoring enough to help the offense. On Saturday night, Laviolette gave veteran Nick Bonino a game off to get Tyler Pitlick back into the lineup. He played on the checking line with Barclay Goodrow and Jimmy Vesey. Of the three, Vesey is a scoring threat. However, they haven’t gone in for a while. Entering tonight’s match versus the Anaheim Ducks, he’s gone eight games without a goal. Vesey had eight in 43 contests.
Rookie Will Cuylle continues to play on the third line. His honest style includes supplying some much needed physicality to a roster that lacks it. He leads the Blueshirts with 120 hits, which also tops all rookies this season. Cuylle has been without a goal since Dec. 29. He has seven in 45 games. He played with Jonny Brodzinski and Blake Wheeler on Saturday night. Wheeler isn’t the same player he used to be in Winnipeg. He can still add something playing a secondary role. But his skating remains an issue.
Despite dropping their sixth game over the last eight, the Rangers remain in first place in the Metropolitan Division with a 28-15-2 record. Their 58 points are two better than the Philadelphia Flyers and three up on the Carolina Hurricanes. They hold the first tiebreaker with 23 regulation wins. The Flyers only have 17 while the Hurricanes have 20. With the All-Star break approaching, there’s still a lot of games remaining. It’ll be interesting to see how the race unfolds.
When you look at the Rangers, they have enough core players who should understand what it takes to be successful. Kreider has been here the longest. He has been part of some really good teams that were close to winning the Stanley Cup. None more heartbreaking than 2013-14 when they fell to the Kings and Jonathan Quick a decade ago. Now, Quick plays for the Rangers and keeps them in games like last night when most of the team played uninspired against an offensively inept Kings, who got a gift from the perplexing K’Andre Miller late in the second period for the game-winner. Miller’s misadventures are becoming increasingly frustrating. He handed Quenton Byfield a goal you or I could’ve scored.
Miller is part of that core. He’s played long enough to know what he can and can’t do. You wouldn’t know it by some of the glaring mistakes he continues to make. Miller is good at assessing his play, even admitting that he took a mental break away from the team recently. At times, he can make the right plays that excite the same fans who are at their wit’s end with him. It’s imperative that he get back to playing the way he did for most of the first half. His work with Jacob Trouba remains the key to the defense. They get most of the tough assignments.
Adam Fox has been producing. He’s the offensive leader of the blue line. Teamed with rugged warrior Ryan Lindgren, who will do virtually anything to help the Rangers win, they are a reliable pair. Fox’s play has slipped defensively since returning from an upper-body injury he suffered on Nov. 2. He might be playing banged up. Lindgren always does due to absorbing some heavy hits and blocking shots.
In what’s been an inconsistent third year, Braden Schneider has been up and down. There are moments when he makes a good play that helps the cause. Then, there are times when he loses his man, such as on Kevin Fiala’s first goal for the Kings on Jan. 20. Even playing without Erik Gustafsson, that isn’t an excuse for leaving Fiala wide open to bury a Trevor Moore feed in front. A play Zac Jones did nothing wrong on. Jones doesn’t play often. But he hustled back defensively to stop a breakaway with a clean stick lift. Schneider has to avoid some of the penalties he takes. He’s still learning.
Igor Shesterkin has not been himself this season. Whether it’s the defense or not, the former 2022 Vezina winner has too many games when he’s allowing questionable goals. He still shows flashes of brilliance. But he has yet to rediscover the form that made him one of the game’s elite goalies. He’s 28 and supposed to be in his prime. The Rangers desperately need Shesterkin to raise his level if they want to seriously compete.
When it comes down to it, the Rangers’ core is on its third coach in four years. They had David Quinn from 2018-19 until 2020-21. He was tougher than Gallant, who was more hands-off like Alain Vigneault. That was part of the reason he was let go. The players indicated that they wanted a more hands-on coach who would be honest with them. Laviolette is certainly that. Just from watching his postgame interviews, he pulls no punches. He is much more honest in his assessment than Gallant.
The Rangers are still trying to win with Zibanejad as their number one center. He hasn’t had a consistent season. Always a streaky player, Zibanejad can get hot and score goals during stretches. The Rangers are still waiting for him to go on a tear. The five-on-five issues between him and Kreider, who’s on pace for 40 goals, remain. They haven’t been as effective on the cycle. Both are dangerous in transition. That’s how Kakko got his third goal in a 5-2 home win over the Seattle Kraken on Jan. 16. Kreider moved the puck up for Zibanejad, who then made a nice backhand pass that Kakko buried.
Forechecking remains an area the Rangers must improve. It can’t always come from Panarin, Trocheck, and Lafreniere, who was robbed late by Kings backup goalie David Rittich of a tying goal. If he buried half the chances he’s had, Lafreniere would have at least 20 goals instead of the 11 he brings into Anaheim.
The lack of defense is a big concern. It isn’t only about the defensemen. The forwards aren’t coming back consistently like they had been earlier in the season. They know better.
By now, opponents know that if they can shut down the Panarin line and limit the Rangers’ top power play, they have a good chance of winning. Unless Zibanejad and Kreider pick it up at even strength, the Rangers are too reliant on Panarin and Trocheck, who’s been their MVP due to what he brings. The impact on faceoffs is a big reason for the team’s improvement.
Even with Filip Chytil continuing to skate on his own back home in Czechia, there’s no way of knowing if or when he can return. Concussions are tricky because they’re the unknown. He must get medically cleared before playing again. If he takes another hit, that could be his career. What about his livelihood? Is it worth the risk? It’s his decision.
Obviously, if Chytil came back, that would help solve the secondary scoring issues. He could slot in on the third line and upgrade the top nine. That would then allow Laviolette to have better choices for the fourth line, including Bonino, who’s been miscast on the third line.
The Rangers still need another rugged forward who can also add some scoring to a stale roster that lacks enough grit if they get into a physical series. Blake Coleman has those qualities. But his cap hit ($4.9 million) is too much. He certainly has performed well for the mediocre Calgary Flames. Coleman teamed with Goodrow to win consecutive Cups in Tampa. They comprised that superb third line with Yanni Gourde.
Whatever the organization decides between now and the Mar. 8 trade deadline, it’ll still come down to a core that’s already gone through two coaches. The same problems are still boiling to the surface under Laviolette, who preaches team discipline along with a structured system.
At some point, you have to point the finger at the players. The window for this group is running out. If they fizzle out in the first round again following a promising start, it could be time for management to consider breaking it up. Hopefully, it doesn’t reach that point.
For a change, I’m going to start with the good stuff before I get to the bad – of which there was plenty of last night – and that is the induction of Devils icon Sergei Brylin into the still relatively new Ring of Honor. Brylin is the first Devils player and only the second person after original owner John McMullen to be given this kind of recognition. Others will surely follow down the road – our three Cup-winning coaches, Lou Lamoriello and several other players surely deserve to be honored but for now, Brylin’s a nice first step toward giving some other icons and championship Devils well-deserved recognition.
Particularly since Brylin was the only three-time Cup winner for the Devils who didn’t have his number retired (and has coached in the organization for much of his post-playing career), it’s probably all the more fitting he’s the first player who had this type of ceremony. I’m not going to pretend I was the biggest Brylin fan while he was playing, he never had the most outgoing personality, big offensive stats or the crunching hits of a Scott Stevens but you always had to respect him. While he’s not a foundation piece or a gaudy decoration, he was definitely a glue guy, someone who would do a job on any line and in any position in the lineup. Those type of players are essential to Cup teams, even if they’re not the first guy fans will buy a jersey of, or even the fifth.
It is unfortunate that he last played for the Devils in 2008 so you have a whole generation of fans who maybe casually know him as a coach in Albany/Utica and now here but never really saw him as a player. For someone who’s not all that comfortable in the spotlight, Brylin did more than fine with his speech. Unfortunately, Brylin was the last Devil who did anywhere close to fine on the ice tonight, and now I can get to the evisceration.
Before that though, a personal note – apologies if anyone lurks on this blog waiting for my comments on the Devils, I just haven’t been feeling the urge to even watch this team anywhere close to day in and day out, let alone write a blog on it. From early on this season, I just haven’t had a good feeling about this group. Whether overconfidence set in after last year and a dominant preseason, or bad coaching and goaltending have poisoned the well to a degree where everyone either stinks or just gives effort on an intermittent basis, this just…isn’t a very likeable team right now. You can rightly say two years ago we would have killed to just have a frustrating bubble team, but a lot’s changed since then.
I could make the case they were due for some regression after overachieving last year, but that doesn’t give them license to be total underachievers now. This sort of reminds me of the 2009-10 season where in the first half the Devils were on a 125-point pace with a decent, if not great roster but then cratered in the second half and culminated that by a disgraceful no-show against the Flyers in the first round. Even when everyone was healthy this season – which, granted hasn’t been often – they’ve relied on their talent and individual brilliance too much. I was accused of being alarmist early this year when I pointed out if not for Jack Hughes and a godly power play we’d be terrible. Well, now look at us after Jack wound up on IR and the power play has been defanged by the twin losses of Jack and Dougie Hamilton. A power play that was ’80 Oilers-esque for the first fifteen or twenty games of the season has now reverted back to the dark ages where you don’t even expect to get a good chance, you’re just hoping not to get scored on – whereas on the PK, you’re just hoping not to get scored on every game.
Neither mission was accomplished as a brutal shorthanded goal, a PK goal almost literally before you could blink in the first period (after the first of stiff Cal Foote’s two penalties) and some awful turnovers, lazy defending and impotent finishing all led to a 6-2 rout that wasn’t even as close as that score would indicate. Me and my friends walked out at 6-0 in the third period, and frankly I would have gone sooner if I wasn’t visiting them a few sections over. Although the game was clearly over by then, the last Stars goal was pretty indicative of how the night went for us:
Luke Hughes in particular looked hapless on that play and has not just hit the rookie wall, but crashed into it at full speed. He’s hardly the only one who stunk up the joint tonight with terrible decision making and without any concept of how to play defense though. I don’t even want to waste any time or effort pulling up the power play shift which led to Roope Hintz’s shorthanded goal early in the second period but trust me, it was bad. I don’t even want to see it again, but it involved turnovers from at least the trio of Luke, Jesper Bratt and Nathan Bastian…all on the same shift. Puck sloppiness and lazy defending had the inevitable result of a back-breaking second goal, after the Devils’ punchless offense had already been frustrated by ex-Devil Scott Wedgewood. Hintz made Simon Nemec look particularly bad on this play, though it’s hard to get on the kid too much given the level he’s played at as a 19-year old rookie – plus, the inevitable goal was just the end of a lot of disasters on our ‘power play’.
Maybe after a decent-ish start it was inevitable that the team would turn tail and quit at that point, which they certainly did. For almost two periods, Nico Daws kept the Devils in the game which is a strange thing to say in a game we would eventually lose 6-2. But even Daws could do nothing about the utter breakdowns that led to goals #3 and 4 in the last four minutes of the period, turning the crowd from angst to anger. Three guys went toward Tyler Seguin on the right side of the net, leaving Matt Duchene wide open on the left side for a layup goal #3, this is where the ‘is it the dumb system or dumb players?’ conundrum rears its ugly head. Hintz found himself wide open on the right for goal #4 when everyone else was either on the point or the left side of the net. Too many mistakes to get on any one person in particular, unless you’re Lindy Ruff and have the microscope out for Alexander Holtz…which leads to my first target for this mess of a season, the head coach.
First, on the macro level when you get scored on first 31 times in 44 games, that’s indicative of how this team constantly gets off to slow start after slow start, particularly at home where they’re now 9-11-2, compared to 14-7-1 on the road. Once is an accident, twice is a trend and thirty-plus times in barely half a season is a real problem. There’s only so many times the goalies can take the blame for the rest of the skaters’ inability or unwillingness to play sixty minutes most nights. Clearly, the home-road split is another issue. When you’re this bad with the last line change at home and this good without it, it makes you wonder about things…
Even the games we managed to win at home, we weren’t overly impressive in almost any of them. Eight of our nine home wins were either one-goal games, or a one-goal game that turned into a two-goal margin after a late empty-netter (against the pitiful Blackhawks a couple weeks ago) – and many of them were wild comebacks since again, we usually give up the first goal and start badly in the first period. That’s before we even get to the losses, many of which are either against horrible teams or mediocre junk. When this team misses the playoffs they’ll have nobody but themselves to blame after dropping so many points at home to the dross of the league.
Last in the Metro Columbus? One loss and barely avoided a second after Luke’s coast-to-coast goal of the season, while we thumped them twice in Ohio. Anaheim and San Jose, two of the three worst teams in the league? 5-1 and 6-3 losses at home, respectively. Montreal and their conference worst -36 goal differential? Another desultory loss at home last Wednesday. We single-handedly kept a rancid, aging Capitals team in the playoff hunt by losing twice to them at home early in the season, giving up ten goals in two games to a team that’s averaged less than 2.5 per game. Maybe there’s too much line changing and not enough playing at home. There was certainly a lot of angst in the air even before last night’s game, because let’s be honest we – the season ticket holders and people who come to a lot of games by other means – are tired of this bleep by now. I didn’t even bother watching the Columbus game on Friday where we had a relatively comfortable win. Why bother when I just know they’re going to stink it up every time I am contractually obligated to watch?
On a micro level, my problem with the head coach is both his lack of accountability for 95% of the roster when they screw up, and his over-the-top accountability for Holtz, the former first-round pick. It was one thing when last year Holtz wasn’t playing well and the team had other options, which kept him unconscionably in the scratch box for weeks at a time before he finally had to ask to be sent down to get actual playing time. This year however, he’s pacing for 20+ goals and 40+ points, all despite constantly being stuck on the fourth line for long stretches with anywhere from 10-14 minutes a night. And yet he still can’t get out of the doghouse. Lindy’s combative answer to a perfectly legitimate question about why Holtz only got two shifts in the third period against Montreal after he tied the game with a power play goal was ridiculous.
Lindy Ruff didn't like a question about Alex Holtz's playing time on Wednesday.
Not only was it dismissive but to top that off, he went into a mini-dissertation about how some turnover along the boards in the defensive zone during the second period was the reason he played so little in the third. I saw at least ten worse turnovers last night than the one which was being referenced (and it did get posted on Twitter if you want to look it up), none of them by Holtz. Of course it’s like seeing Halley’s Comet when you see a Holtz shift these days, despite having the top five-on-five goal scoring ratio per sixty minutes on the team, at least as of a couple games ago. You would think a guy who had three of our twelve goals in the last five games, despite an average ATOI of about twelve minutes a game would get some chances higher in the lineup to get the offense going. But no, gotta focus on his mistakes with a superpowered microscope while everyone else can litter the ice with mistakes without so much as a rebuke from this head coach.
And yes, I get the whole some guys need tough love premise and Holtz seems to be one of those guys, even GM Tom Fitzgerald put out a public warning after last year saying this was a pivotal offseason for the former first-rounder. At some point though, you have to either give him the same chances you give everyone else on the roster or come down on everyone else with the same intensity, one of the two. You can’t have one level of treatment for one young player and another for the rest of the roster. Especially when said young player can add something more than a plug like Max Willman or Chris Tierney can. You can find guys to be plugs on the fourth line, but potential goalscorers don’t grow on trees. And Holtz is developing into an actual goalscorer, but at this point I think he’s ever going to realize his true potential until either he or the head coach leaves.
Power play goal for New Jersey!
Scored by Alexander Holtz with 18:23 remaining in the 3rd period.
As frustrated as the head coach leaves me and other fans – yes, the Fire Lindy chants started to bubble to the surface again last night, though not yet with the same unity they did early last year – I don’t want to let the players skate by without throwing a bunch of grievances their way. The system may be bad and clearly the special teams need worth on both ends, PK and PP but some of that is on the players being dumb too. It’s not like the system really changed from last year when we had 120 points and beat the Rangers in the first round. At some point these players need to be made to take agency for their own underachieving, particularly the stars.
Jack Hughes? Great for the first 1/4 of the season before he was either sulking around for the previous few weeks, or playing injured before injury finally forced him from the lineup. Nico Hischier? Hasn’t been as dynamic as last year, and when you’re the captain you need to take a good chunk of the hit for this team’s continuing inability to respond early in games and play well at home. Timo Meier? Even around the injuries, he certainly hasn’t been as dynamic as he was cracked up to be when we acquired him. Jesper Bratt? Still on over a point-a-game pace and one of the few guys I can actually say gives effort on most nights, but he’s definitely proven a lot easier to shut down lately without Jack around for defenses to focus on (same with Nico, for that matter).
And the offense isn’t even the biggest issue right now, in spite of the underachieving and injuries to guys like Jack and Dougie with Holtz chained to the doghouse. Clearly goaltending remains the biggest issue although Daws had a couple of good games to start with after his post-holiday recall and even Vitek Vanecek was fine by all accounts in Columbus (despite giving up a goal on the first shot faced there, another game where we got scored on first). There’s only so much scapegoating of young and mediocre goalies you can do before the question has to be asked, well then why are we playing the same complicated system with younger goalies and younger defensemen who aren’t used to something as overly complicated as our system is?
It’s also easy to scapegoat the fact we have three rookie or second-year defensemen in the lineup nightly until you realize even the vets like John Marino and Jonas Siegenthaler are both underperforming as well (whereas Nemec has been overperforming expectations, despite goal #2 last night), or maybe they were both just one-year wonders. If that’s the case then Luke and Nemec really both better develop into franchise defensemen. Of course, Luke is already bumping up on a career high in games played in late January. At least Nemec had experience with a pro workload in the AHL last year so he shouldn’t have a rookie wall to get through the way Luke does. Brendan Smith being out due to injury now actually doesn’t help our already sagging PK either, although for as much as he adds on the PK, five-on-five he creates other issues.
So yes, the coaching and goaltending needs to get a lot better, the D needs to be better, the offense needs to be more consistent and at least find a level between early-season god like power play and current hapless power play and the effort needs to be more consistent, especially against bad teams at home or really anyone at home these days. Aside from all that, there just doesn’t seem to be enough urgency as a whole in the organization and this is my cue to (for the first time really) rip the GM.
It’d probably be wrong of me to second-guess every move of Fitz’s this offseason since I either liked or understood what he did, but pretty much everything Fitz did has not worked out. The Tyler Toffoli trade is pretty much indicative of our whole offseason, looked great on paper – a third-round pick and a guy who’d fallen down in the pecking order in Yegor Sharangovich for a guy who had 30+ goals and 70+ points in Calgary last year? No-brainer on paper, and yet Toffoli has been straight trash since December started and replacing a guy who grew up in the system with a merc on a lame-duck deal probably changes the chemistry too. Five goals (which include the ultimate junktime tally last night in a 6-1 game) and four assists in 23 games just is not anywhere close to good enough. I don’t want to hear that ‘scorers are streaky’, especially when this one literally adds nothing other than scoring.
As for Sharangovich? Amazing what getting a chance elsewhere can do for you…19 goals and 32 points in 46 games, both totals better than Toffoli’s, much better in points (17 goals and 30 points). I couldn’t be happier for the kid, who was a character and always seemingly came to the rink with a positive attitude. Sharangovich is the ultimate cautionary tale for our treatment of Holtz. Let’s not continue to overlook him here and watch him blossom elsewhere – and in Sharangovich’s case, re-blossom after two pretty decent seasons at the start of his career.
Clearly I understood letting Damon Severson and Ryan Graves go, to get younger on cheaper on the blueline while necessarily re-signing Bratt and Timo to lucrative extensions up front. As of now though, only Bratt looks close to being an $8 million player and he’s not quite lived up to that billing the last few weeks either. And yes, we’ve had infinitely more problems defensively than last year but a lot of that is due to Dougie being out while Marino and Siegs have been underachieving. It would be nice to have better options on the PK than a regressed Marino, Smith (who’s now injured) and a whole lot of kids though. I also understood keeping Lindy off a team-record points season but clearly that isn’t working out either.
It’s hard even now to get on Fitz for his goalie decisions (or indecisions?) given what little there is on the market and the overinflated prices of anyone who is but at a certain point you have to take the hit when almost none of your moves at the position work out. From the injury to Jonathan Bernier to the retirement of Corey Crawford and the regression of both Vitek and Akira Schmid this year, the question has to be asked who’s to blame for the constant issues at that position? The GM for making all the wrong moves? A terrible goalie coach? A defense that’s been bad every year except last year, which not-so-coincidentally is the one season we had decent goaltending for much of the year? It’s more likely some combination of all three but whatever it is, needs to be sorted out sooner rather than later, especially before we ruin both Schmid and Daws playing behind a tire fire of a team and completely eviscerate poor Vitek who’s already one step from being run out of town on a rail after being such a big part of last year’s success.
More than even any decisions Fitz has or hasn’t made, my big problem with him right now is twofold…one, you just can’t let this season slip away without at least attempting to shake things up. I call it the Joe Douglas school of sitting on your hands when the team is crumbling around you, not even attempting to do anything to change the culture, chemistry, talent, etc ruined my Jets’ season and it’s about to ruin the Devils’ season as well. If you don’t want to fire the head coach whatever, DO SOMETHING, literally. Hold someone accountable for these constant clown shows. For too long we had a lassiez-faire atitude toward things around here when everything constantly went wrong and that was part of our culture of losing.
Last year everything went right aside from the first two games of the season and playoffs, and the team smashed through its glass ceiling of expectations but now the standard should be higher than just shrug your hands and blame injuries if things don’t go well this year. We traded for Timo and re-signed him long-term, re-signed Bratt long-term, traded for Toffoli and all on top of a core that broke our playoff drought and won our first postseason series in over a decade against the hated Rangers. Yes, Jack and Dougie are hurt – tough noogies. Jack’s not out for the whole season and it’s not like we were smashing teams with them in the lineup either. Hold someone accountable for goodness sakes! I’d even take a goalie coach change at this point, cause even that’s above what we’ve done or are probably going to do in terms of holding feet to the fire.
Accountability needs to start at the top though, and that leads to my second big criticism of Fitz…where are you, my dude? You can’t go on every show and podcast known to man last year from TSN to Spitting Chicklets, take all the plaudits thrown your way when the team’s going well and then just hide in the bunker this year when things aren’t going to plan. Especially with the expectations surrounding this year’s team, missing the playoffs would be an utter disaster. I get you can do that because the New Jersey media isn’t exactly going to hunt you down like Canadian media or New York media would, but that doesn’t make it right. Fitz and Lindy must love being in New Jersey with the lack of media to hold their feet to the fire, no wonder Lindy got testy when a young reporter dared to ask him about Holtz, most of the media here is either state-run (i.e. team stuff) or too worried about their own jobs to push back against the head coach or publicly wonder where the GM is now that he isn’t looking for pats on the back.
Like I said before, I haven’t exactly felt like doing a blog most of the time because I don’t want to just rant day after day about the state of this team sitting on the wrong side of the bubble for the playoffs due to mistakes and oversights of its own doing without any sign things are going to change. Thankfully I will not be at tomorrow’s game against Vegas (I don’t generally go to three games in a week anyway) but I fully expect things to get ugly if we get whipped again and even the local media won’t be able to get away from asking questions about guys’ futures here. Say what you want about Lou and his career post-2012 or even about his choice for a replacement head coach on Long Island yesterday, but he showed again with the firing of Lane Lambert and hiring of Patrick Roy that he still won’t stand for underperformance, and he’s still willing to think outside the box.
There’s only three more games left before the All-Star week off, so at least I have two weeks off from the next time I have to concern myself with seeing a trash performance in person. Hopefully the next time I write a blog (likely after we’ve hit the All-Star break) it’ll be after the outlook is better…or at least after changes have finally been made.
In last night’s game against the Vegas Golden Knights, the New York Rangers fell apart in an uncompetitive 5-1 loss at the Fortress on Jan. 18.
If you stayed up late to watch this one, the Rangers started well against the defending champs. They were aggressive on the forecheck, generating some good scoring chances in the first part of the game.
Knights goalie Logan Thompson made a few big saves to keep them off the scoreboard. The best opportunities came from Kaapo Kakko, Alexis Lafreniere, and Vincent Trocheck. First, Kakko got open in front, but his shot hit the side of the net. Then, Thompson made two huge saves to deny Lafreniere and Trocheck of giving the Rangers the lead. That set the tone for the Knights.
Even an early power play drawn by Erik Gustafsson couldn’t aid the cause. Thompson made stops on both Artemi Panarin and Mika Zibanejad. He was the story of the first period, making 11 saves to hold the Blueshirts in check.
Defensive breakdown leads to Vegas goal
Shortly after the Golden Knights killed off the Byron Froese hooking penalty that Gustafsson drew, it was the home side that took advantage of a defensive breakdown by the Rangers to grab the lead.
On a play started by Vegas defenseman Nicolas Hague, his pass for Nicolas Roy trapped both Lafreniere and Panarin in the neutral zone. Their passive play allowed Roy and Jonathan Marchessault to work a give and go before Marchessault finished off his 19th goal to give the Knights a 1-0 lead with 8:25 remaining.
K’Andre Miller was the defenseman who got outnumbered on the goal. He’s struggled lately. It hasn’t been a good stretch for him or defensive partner Jacob Trouba, with both caught on for some goals against. While it’s easy to point the finger at Miller for the first Vegas goal, it was a bad decision by both Lafreniere and Panarin in the neutral zone that created the Marchessault tally. Lafreniere was also late coming back on the backcheck.
The forwards must do a better job of reading and reacting to plays. One of the biggest reasons for the Rangers’ mediocre stretch over a month is due to the forwards and defensemen not being on the same page. They’ve lost their structure that coach Peter Laviolette preaches. It was that attention to detail that had them way ahead in the Metropolitan Division. That lead is down to two points after the Flyers defeated the Stars on Thursday night.
Rangers victimized by Barbashev
Despite the good start, the Rangers found themselves behind on the scoreboard. Over three minutes later, they were victimized by Ivan Barbashev. He was able to get behind the defense and have the puck bank off his skate to put the Knights up by two.
It was yet another case of the Rangers not defending the way they should. Following a Miller clear, Marchessault found Roy at the Rangers’ blue line for an easy entry into the zone. Miller allowed Roy to get behind. He then skated around Trouba and centered a pass that a cutting Barbashev redirected in with his skate. He beat Kakko in front on the goal.
The referees got together and initiated a video review to determine if Barbashev kicked the puck in. It didn’t take them long to decide that it was a good goal. Just like that, the Rangers fell behind by two on a pair of Knights’ goals that came 3:13 apart. It went from being a good period to a forgettable one.
Knights Shutdown Rangers’ Offense
The second period was a different story. Facing an opponent that boasts big defensemen, even without Shea Theodore, the Rangers found it challenging to get anything going offensively. The Knights made it difficult on the Rangers’ offense by keeping them to the outside.
With essentially a lot of one and dones, the Rangers were unable to mount enough of an attack to get back in the game. In particular, the top scoring line of Panarin, Trocheck, and Lafreniere were limited by the stingy Knights’ defense. Panarin has done most of the heavy lifting. He had an off night.
Will Cuylle got a good shot right on Thompson from the slot that the goalie handled. Cuylle was a bright spot in the defeat. He took 15 shifts and had two shots and four hits in 11:05 of ice time. Although the puck hasn’t gone in for him recently, Cuylle continues to play a gritty style that’s easy to respect. The Rangers can use more of that element moving forward.
Knights Strike Twice late in Second Period
With seemingly nothing happening, Braden Schneider took an interference minor on Barbashev in front of the Rangers’ net. That put the Golden Knights on the power play. They made Schneider pay.
On what was another glaring example of poor defense, the Rangers allowed an easy power-play goal to fall behind by three. The penalty killers were way too passive. Chandler Stephenson played catch with Mark Stone before he found Barbashev wide open in the slot for an easy one-timer past Igor Shesterkin to make it 3-0.
They weren’t done. With the Rangers apparently napping, the Knights struck twice in only a 25-second span to double the margin. On the next shift following the Barbashev goal, Brett Howden moved the puck up for Kaedan Korczak. He had enough room to take a wrist shot that Keegan Kolesar was able to tip in to make it 4-0 with 1:36 remaining in the second period.
The game was over. The Rangers weren’t coming back from a four goal deficit against the Golden Knights. It was their costly mistakes that put them behind by four after two periods. The same ones have become a common occurrence. These bad habits must be corrected soon. The second half won’t get any easier.
Zibanejad ends Goal drought
On a power play that carried over to the start of the third period, Zibanejad ended his goal drought by scoring his 15th of the season. It was his first goal in nine games.
The play was set up by Panarin and Kreider. They combined to find a cutting Zibanejad for his first power-play goal since Dec. 22. He hasn’t finished as much this season. Except for a mini-stretch last month, Zibanejad hasn’t scored the way he’s capable of. The Rangers need him to get hot.
Howden Seals it for Knights
Whenever they play the Knights, the Rangers see a familiar face. Howden spent three seasons on Broadway before he was traded to Vegas on July 17, 2021. He’s found a home there. A dependable checking forward who kills penalties, he seems to always play well against his former team.
With Shesterkin lifted for an extra attacker, Stone intercepted an Adam Fox pass and moved the puck ahead for Howden, who sealed it for the Knights with an empty netter. It was his fifth goal of the season.
Howden finished the game with a goal and an assist and a plus-two in 15:52. He got the last laugh again. It’s hard to beat winning a Stanley Cup. One in which he contributed to the Golden Knights’ victory last summer.
There really isn’t anything else to add. It is what it is.
Road Trip Continues in LA
Prior to the Rangers continuing their road trip with a visit to LA to face the struggling Kings, the Flyers will be in action earlier on Saturday when they host the Avalanche. They’ve won five games in a row to vault into second place in the division.
The Rangers still have a game in hand. They also have the first tiebreaker with six more regulation wins (23-17) than the Flyers. However, you can’t help but admire the job John Tortorella has done in Philadelphia. They don’t have any established stars. But they have good players who have bought into his system. That’s why they are where they are at this point of the season.
Valiquette Blasts Rangers’ Effort
In case you missed it, MSG Rangers analyst Steve Valiquette blasted the Rangers’ effort after the loss. He couldn’t understand how they could let a Vegas team off the hook when they were without top center Jack Eichel, top defenseman Theodore, and number one goalie Adin Hill.
He was correct in his assertion that it was a winnable game. He felt that once the Golden Knights surged ahead, there wasn’t much energy from the Rangers’ side. He even went as far as to say that they’re not the same team. In the first half, when they fell behind, they battled through it to pull out some games. There was none of that last night.
Aside from chastising both Lafreniere and Miller for the game’s first goal, Valiquette also didn’t have anything complimentary to say about the Rangers’ goaltending. He stated that since the new calendar year, it’s been their opponents that have had the better goalie in six of the nine games they’ve played this month.
He isn’t wrong. Shesterkin isn’t stealing as many games as he has in the past. Even if I’m not a big proponent of analytics, the statistics don’t lie.
There’s a reason for Shesterkin’s mediocre play that has him with a 2.84 goals-against-average (GAA) and a .902 save percentage. He hasn’t been as consistent. When even the telecast can tell that he’s shaky, that’s alarming.
It isn’t all his fault. The Rangers have gotten sloppy. It’s been going on for a while. The defensive lapses. The lazy turnovers. The blown coverages. There are too many open looks for opponents. That needs to change.
When you have some people questioning why these issues continue to prop up, maybe it isn’t about the coaching. This core has been together long enough to know how to play winning hockey. They’re on their third coach. It’s only Year 1 under Laviolette. The egregious mistakes shouldn’t still be happening.
Either they fix it and make a big run this spring, or it’s time for the organization to consider breaking it up. Enough is enough.
When Kaapo Kakko returned on Jan. 14 for the New York Rangers, he was immediately put on the first line by coach Peter Laviolette. It’s where he started the season.
The Rangers are banking on Kakko to improve his play by producing. In his second game back, since missing 21 games with a lower-body injury, he scored a goal in a 5-2 win over the Seattle Kraken on Tuesday night, Jan. 16.
For Kakko, his goal that came in the second period was a positive for the Rangers who won their second game in a row. Despite being largely outplayed by the Kraken in a middle stanza that saw the visitors hold a 16-10 edge in shots, it was the Rangers who got the only two goals to extend their lead to 4-1.
Shesterkin The Difference
They can thank Igor Shesterkin for that. When the Kraken upped their offensive attack, it was the Rangers’ starting netminder who made the biggest difference. He was at his best turning away more than half Seattle’s 31 shots in the second period. He made 29 saves to earn his second straight victory.
That’s two consecutive starts where Shesterkin was sharp. The former Vezina winner has stopped 53 of 56 shots to highlight the pair of Rangers’ wins. Undoubtedly, they need him to continue his improvement in the second half of the season.
When he’s dialed in, the 28-year-old Shesterkin is one of the game’s best goaltenders. That hasn’t been the case for most of this season. It’s important for him to continue to find that level. When he’s consistently making key saves, that fuels the team’s confidence.
There still were too many quality scoring chances that he had to handle. Despite the outcome, the Rangers weren’t particularly good defensively. They left the slot open for some of the Kraken’s opportunities. It’s a good thing Shesterkin bailed his teammates out. They needed it. Otherwise, the game could’ve been different.
Trocheck Connects on the Power Play
Following a first power play that produced no shots on Kraken backup goalie Chris Driedger, the Rangers were rewarded another one due to Justin Schultz firing a puck over the glass for a delay of game minor.
On what was a great play off the rush, Vincent Trocheck connected on the power play. He was the beneficiary of a wonderful no-look pass from linemate Artemi Panarin to slam home his 14th goal of the season at 8:22 of the first period.
After Adam Fox made a nice outlet for Panarin, he carried the puck over the Kraken blue line and then looked away from a cutting Trocheck. By freezing the Kraken’s penalty killers, it allowed him enough time to make a perfect feed into Trocheck’s wheelhouse for a power-play goal that gave the Rangers a 1-0 lead.
Unfortunately, it was short-lived. After Barclay Goodrow took an undisciplined roughing minor during a scrum, Trocheck made a rare mistake on the penalty kill that allowed Jordan Eberle to tie it up with 9:19 remaining.
Trocheck’s turnover led to a three-on-one for the Kraken. Oliver Bjorkstrand and Jared McCann combined to get the puck to Eberle, who beat Shesterkin with a wrist shot in the slot to draw Seattle even.
Gustafsson gets it Right Back
On the next shift, Chris Kreider forced a pass for Mika Zibanejad that took a favorable bounce off a Kraken player. Erik Gustafsson then quickly picked up the puck and fired a shot by Driedger to get it right back.
His unassisted tally came just 28 seconds after Eberle had tied the game. It was Gustafsson’s first goal since Nov. 3. Having struggled recently, he had his best game of the new calendar year. Gustafsson was more noticeable offensively and played well defensively. He finished the game with his fourth goal and a plus-two rating in 14:01.
Both Gustafsson and defensive partner Braden Schneider had good games. Schneider would later pick up a secondary assist on a Blake Wheeler goal that proved to be the game-winner.
Wheeler Snaps Goal Drought
With Shesterkin delivering timely saves during a stronger second period for the Kraken, that allowed the Rangers to be opportunistic offensively.
A player who’d struggled lately is Wheeler. The veteran snapped an 11-game goal drought by tipping in a Jonny Brodzinski shot to put the Rangers ahead by two with 7:28 left in the second period. At the time the goal was scored, it was a rare instance when the Rangers spent some time in the Kraken zone.
Wheeler’s goal was a big momentum swing. The Kraken had controlled most of the play. Even after it, the Rangers left Seattle defenseman Jamie Oleksiak wide open for a high shot that didn’t connect. At the time, MSG analyst Joe Micheletti observed that it didn’t feel like a 3-1 game. He was correct.
Kakko Increases the Lead
With less than three minutes left in the second period, Kakko increased the lead to 4-1 when he got open in the slot and buried a backhand feed from Zibanejad to score his first goal since Nov. 20.
On a play started by Kreider in transition, he made a good pass up for Zibanejad, who easily skated into the Kraken zone. He then found an isolated Kakko open for a quick one-timer that beat Driedger to give the Rangers a three-goal lead headed to the third period.
That gave the Rangers some cushion to work with. Most importantly, it had to be a confidence boost for Kakko. He’d struggled during his first 21 games before the injury kept him out for almost two months. In his first two games back, he’s played well. They need him to.
McCann Scores Late for Kraken
With the Rangers protecting a three-goal lead in the third period, K’Andre Miller took down Eeli Tolvanen to put the Kraken on the power play. That led to McCann scoring late for the Kraken to make it 4-2.
On what was a play in transition, Schultz got the puck up to Eberle, who then fed McCann. For some inexplicable reason, he was allowed to drive to the net without any resistance and score on a backhand for the Kraken’s second power-play goal of the night.
The Rangers usually do a better job on the penalty kill. If there’s one area that was frustrating, it was their failure to kill both Kraken power plays. They went 2-for-2.
Wheeler Seals It
Despite the Kraken lifting Driedger for an extra attacker, the Rangers were able to finish off the game. Wheeler sealed it by scoring into a vacated net with 2:38 remaining. Both Zibanejad and Fox picked up their second assists of the game.
The Rangers limited Seattle to seven shots in the final period. The victory moved them four ahead of the Philadelphia Flyers in the Metropolitan Division.
Blueshirts Head Out West
Next up for the Blueshirts is a trip out West. They will have four games on the West Coast starting on Thursday, Jan. 18 at the Vegas Golden Knights. There’ll be a back-to-back this weekend at the Los Angeles Kings and Anaheim Ducks on Jan. 20-21. They’ll conclude the road swing at the San Jose Sharks on Jan. 23.
It came down to the final seconds. After Dylan Strome won a faceoff back for an Evgeny Kuznetsov shot in the slot, Igor Shesterkin made one last save to preserve a 2-1 Rangers win over the Capitals. He stopped 24 of 25 shots to help the Rangers snap their four-game losing streak.
It was a much needed victory. With both the Hurricanes and Flyers on their heels, the Rangers came out with an important two points on Sunday afternoon. It didn’t come easy. The rematch with the Caps was another hard fought game decided by a goal.
At least this time, it was the Rangers who came out on top. They were able to rebound from Saturday’s 3-2 loss in Washington by turning the tables back home in New York City. There were some close calls late with them protecting a one-goal lead. But they did enough to earn their first win since Jan. 4.
Kakko Plays Well in Return
The biggest story coming into the game was the return of Kaapo Kakko. After missing 21 games due to a lower-body injury that he suffered against the Sabres on Nov. 27, Kakko played well against the Caps.
With Rangers coach Peter Laviolette deciding to put Kakko back up on the slumping first line with Mika Zibanejad and Chris Kreider, they had a bit more jump early on. During a strong first period mostly controlled by the guys wearing the dark blue liberty jerseys, the trio spent a long shift in the Caps’ zone. Kakko was set up in front. But Charlie Lindgren made a good save to deny him.
Although the top line didn’t hit the score sheet, at least they were more noticeable. During the recent stretch, there have been too many shifts when you wondered if Zibanejad and Kreider were on the back of a milk carton. They haven’t been consistent enough at five-on-five. A key area that must improve in order for the Rangers to have success this spring.
Kakko even took the body. He was credited with two hits. A welcome change from how he played in the first part of the season. He also had two shots-on-goal and four attempts in 16:04 of ice time. He received over two minutes on the second power play. Oddly enough, it was that second unit that generated some good chances. Kakko was stopped on one opportunity.
Panarin Gets it Started Early
Before the game was a minute old, Artemi Panarin got things started early. He scored his team-leading 27th goal just 50 seconds in to put the Rangers in front.
On a play from behind his net, Jacob Trouba made a good outlet up to Vincent Trocheck. He then gained the Caps’ zone and moved the puck across for a quick Panarin one-timer that beat Charlie Lindgren underneath the glove.
With the goal, it gave Panarin 400 points as a New York Ranger. It came in his 310th game. He has 127 goals and 273 assists since joining the Rangers in 2019-20. In 42 games, he has 59 points to rank third in league scoring this season. For the game, Panarin had a goal with four shots and went plus-two in 18:47. That included 7:11 of power play time.
Lafreniere Gets Winner
For most of the first period, it was the Rangers who dictated the terms. They held the Caps to three shots for most of the period. Earlier in it, Alexis Lafreniere had a chance to put them up by a pair. However, Lindgren made the save. That didn’t prevent Lafreniere from getting the winner in what was a close game between old rivals.
With less than a minute left, Braden Schneider kept the puck in and found Lafreniere isolated in front. His first shot was stopped by Lindgren. But he was able to put in the rebound to make it 2-0.
The goal ended an eight-game drought. It was Lafreniere’s first goal since Dec. 27 versus Washington. His 11th of the season allowed the Rangers to take a two-goal lead to the locker room.
Although scoring has been tough for him, Lafreniere has been putting up points. He has two goals and six assists for eight points over his last 10 games. His impact was felt on Sunday. It was the diligent work of Lafreniere that drew four penalties. That included a visibly frustrated Joel Edmundson after he was called for high-sticking during the third period.
Lafreniere’s willingness to forecheck and battle for loose pucks is what makes him tough for opponents. His work ethic is a big reason why he’s drawing so many penalties. You never have to worry about his battle level.
His impressive play earned him the game’s first star.
Caps Get Back in It
As often happens in these games, there’s usually a turning point when the momentum shifts. For a while, the Rangers continued to be in charge. But for some reason, they stopped shooting the puck. That helped the Caps get back in it.
With the Rangers suddenly limited offensively against a sharper Caps in the second period, eventually, things began to change. It started with them over passing the puck. That allowed the Caps to move in transition and get a couple of long shots on Shesterkin.
On a bad giveaway by Erik Gustafsson, in which he tried to go up the middle, his lob was intercepted by the Caps. That caused some trouble. Following a tough save from Shesterkin on T.J. Oshie, the Rangers were in full scramble mode. Eventually, Max Pacioretty and Strome were able to set up Oshie in front to cut the deficit to 2-1 with 8:57 remaining in the second period.
Gustafsson’s game has definitely taken a step back lately. He’s committed a few more mistakes that have not helped the cause. While he’s been a good addition, it might be time for Laviolette to consider giving him a night off. If he does, Zac Jones would get into a game. Whether or not that’s being considered depends on the coaching staff.
Oshie nearly tied it a couple of shifts later. Fortunately, Shesterkin made the save on his deflection. Oshie was very good in the two games, scoring in both.
Lindgren Stones Kreider
After Lafreniere drew an interference minor on Martin Fehervary, the Rangers came close to going back up by two. Lindgren made a couple of saves on Zibanejad and Trocheck before Nic Dowd took down Adam Fox, which led to a 37-second five-on-three.
Lindgren stoned Kreider to keep the Rangers off the scoreboard. Following a first save on Kreider, he then made an even better glove save to prevent a certain power-play goal. In particular, Lindgren’s right catching glove was superb in the two-game series. He’d later rob Jimmy Vesey with another glove stop.
Lindgren made 54 saves on 58 combined shots over two starts against the Rangers this weekend. He was named the game’s third star in a losing effort on Sunday.
Shesterkin Shuts the Door
With the Caps continuing to hang around due to the Rangers’ sudden power play outage, they came close to tying it in the third period. Shesterkin shut the door when called upon.
On the first shift, he had to come up with two saves on Oshie and Pacioretty. Shesterkin finished with 24 saves on 25 shots to get the victory. It was one he needed for his confidence.
He also made a nice glove save by getting across to stop Connor McDavid on a one-timer with over 90 seconds left in the game. Shesterkin made seven saves to help the Rangers get back in the win column.
The Caps also missed a couple of scoring chances. Tom Wilson fired a shorthanded shot wide during a Rangers power play. Pacioretty was set up for a dangerous chance with Lindgren off for an extra attacker. However, he didn’t get all of the shot and sent his one-timer wide with 17 seconds remaining.
Ryan Lindgren absorbed a Wilson hit to clear the zone. He had a good game finishing with four blocks and a plus-one in 19:10. Trocheck shot for the empty net but missed wide for an icing.
That allowed the Caps one final chance. Following Strome beating Trocheck on the draw, Shesterkin made the save on Kuznetsov. The puck went behind the net as time expired.
Kraken visit MSG
The Rangers have one more home game this week. They’ll host the Kraken at MSG on Tuesday, Jan. 16.
Seattle has won eight consecutive games. Buoyed by the play of goalie Joey Daccord, along with All-Star Oliver Bjorkstrand and Vince Dunn, they’ve been playing much better lately. The Kraken are fast and can score goals. It’ll be a good test for the Rangers.
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