Rangers at Christmas break: Stuck in mushy middle, NHL playoffs within reach
No team is happier than the New York Rangers to reach the NHL three-day Christmas break.
Their 7-3 win over the Washington Capitals at Capital One Arena on Tuesday night marked the end of an 11-day stretch when they played seven games, including five in seven days last week. They won three of the final four and finished 4-3-0 – rallying to win in each of their four victories.
The win in Washington puts the Rangers at 19-16-4 (42 points), and they head home for a well-earned rest before playing their next four games on the road. That begins with a visit to the New York Islanders on Saturday and ending with an outdoor matchup against the Florida Panthers in the NHL Winter Classic on Jan. 2 at loanDepot Park in Miami.
The Rangers hit the break outside the top eight in the East. They are even in points with the Panthers, who hold the second wild-card spot, but played three more games than the defending champs. In fact, each of the other 15 teams have games in hand on the Rangers, whose .538 points percentage is 14th in the 16-team conference.
Still, things are a lot cheerier than they were at this time a year ago, when the Rangers were embarrassed 5-0 by the New Jersey Devils in their final pre-Christmas game and headed into the break losers in 13 of 17 games on the way to becoming the fourth team ever to miss the Stanley Cup Playoffs after winning the Presidents’ Trophy the previous season.
There’s a lot of work to do, but the Rangers are just a hot week or two from taking a big leap in the Eastern Conference playoff turtle derby – one where 10 teams are separated by just four points.
Breaking down Rangers season & what’s ahead after Christmas break
Goaltending
Igor Shesterkin is the highest-paid goaltender in the NHL, and he’s playing up to his paycheck.
Shesterkin is a workhorse. His 29-save performance in Washington came in his 30th start of the season, the most in the NHL. He’s 16-11-3 with a 2.55 goals-against average and .908 save percentage; both numbers are improved from last season. His 16 wins are tied for most in the NHL; more ominous is that his 839 shots faced are by far the most in the League.
The most indispensable player on the Rangers roster has 16.5 goals saved above expected, per MoneyPuck, fourth most in the NHL.
His backup, 39-year-old Jonathan Quick, is playing much better than his 3-5-1 record would indicate. He has a 1.79 goals-against average and .937 save percentage. Both are NHL bests among goalies who’ve played at least nine games. Quick has not allowed more than three goals in any of his nine starts. The Rangers lose nothing when they put the winningest U.S.-born goaltender in League history in the crease instead of Shesterkin.
Defense
The loss of Adam Fox, their best defenseman, to an upper-body injury on Nov. 29, was a big blow. However, they’re 6-4-2 without the 2021 Norris Trophy winner and haven’t allowed more than four goals in any of the 12 games.
Before the injury, Fox and newcomer Vladislav Gavrikov were among the League’s best defensive pairings. Gavrikov paired with Braden Schneider with Fox out, to favorable results Gavrikov is the elite shutdown defenseman the Rangers signed him to be, and already matched his career high with six goals.
Will Borgen and Carson Soucy form an effective second pairing that does a good job dealing with the opposition’s top scorers. Matthew Robertson is a pleasant surprise on the third pair. Fox’s injury created an opportunity for offense-minded rookie Scott Morrow, but his defensive shortcomings are still apparent.
Fox is eligible to return after the break. It’ll be a big lift when he’s back.
Forwards
Putting the puck in the net is the Rangers’ biggest issue this season. They’ve been shut out a League-leading seven times, with six of those coming at Madison Square Garden. The offense is averaging 1.94 goals per game at MSG, a big reason the Rangers are 5-10-3 in their own building.
Oddly, the offense rarely seems to struggle on the road. The Rangers scored at least four goals in 10 of their 21 road games – a big reason they are 14-6-1 away from MSG.
Artemi Panarin leads the Rangers in goals (14) and points (38) in 38 games. Those aren’t great numbers for a player who’s averaged more than a point a game in each of his first six seasons with the Blueshirts – he’s tied for 27th in the NHL scoring race. Twelve of Panarin’s points came in three four-point performances, meaning he has just 26 points in the other 35 games.
Mika Zibanejad (12), Will Cuylle (10) and injured captain J.T. Miller (10) are the only other players to reach double figures in goals. Among the biggest disappointments is Alexis Lafreniere (eight goals, 20 points, minus-6 in 39 games), who’s not even on pace to match last season’s disappointing numbers (17 goals, 45 points).
The Rangers need more depth scoring. Taylor Raddysh had two goals and an assist in the win at Washington; before that, he’d gone 23 games without a goal The bottom-six forwards aren’t producing much; rookie center Noah Laba’s 12 points are the most of anyone who doesn’t play regularly on the top two lines.
Perhaps rookie Gabe Perreault, who’s on a three-game point streak since his latest call up from Hartford of the American Hockey League, provides a spark offensively in the second half.
Special teams
The injury to Fox blew a hole in the power play. The Rangers were 13-for-61 (21.3 percent) before Fox got hurt; they are 6-for-33 (18.1 percent) without him – and surrendered four of their League-worst six short-handed goals. Coach Mike Sullivan tried to compensate for Fox’s absence by using a five-forward unit on PP1, but it did not produce a goal before he changed course last week, moving Morrow into Fox’s spot with only slightly improved results.
One problem is the lack of power-play time; the Rangers average just 4:15 per game with the man advantage, 29th in the NHL.
The penalty-killers are doing a decent job (80.7 percent, 17th overall), especially this month, when they allowed five goals in 32 man-down situations. All five have come in Rangers victories — two against the Ottawa Senators on Dec. 4, two against the Philadelphia Flyers on Dec. 20 and one in the win against Washington.
Coaching
The Rangers are still getting used to Sullivan’s system. His approach is more of a zone defense rather than the man-to-man system used by his predecessor, Peter Laviolette. The goal is to improve coverage while still giving his players plenty of energy to attack. When it works the way it’s intended to, Sullivan’s system takes time and space away from opposing attackers in the defensive zone, rather than have players chase their man for the entire shift, as usually happens in man-to-man.
Sullivan wants to see his players swarm on the forecheck, shoot the puck more often and get traffic in front of the net – what he calls “the good ice.” Given the Rangers’ personnel limitations, he wants them to incorporate what he describes as “a grind game” and be “a team that’s hard to play against.”
However, each of the top-six forwards experienced production drops this season, and the bottom six doesn’t have anyone resembling a proven scorer. Suffice it to say that installing his system is a work in progress for the two-time Stanley Cup winner.
Schedule
The Rangers become the first team to hit the halfway mark in their season when they visit the Carolina Hurricanes on Monday in the fourth of a six-game road trip. They’re back in Washington for a New Year’s Eve matinee before heading to South Florida to face the Panthers in the NHL Winter Classic on Jan. 2.
The Blueshirts split their remaining 14 games before the Olympic break in early February, with seven home games and seven on the road. That includes a three-game swing through California from Jan. 19-22, and a rare home-and-home set with the New York Islanders on Jan. 28 (at UBS Arena) and Jan. 29 (at the Garden).
The Rangers spend most of the post-Olympic portion of their schedule at home. They return from the break with four straight home games, beginning a stretch that has them play 17 of their final 23 contests at the Garden. That includes a seven-game homestand from March 27-April 8 before ending the season with visits to the Dallas Stars, Panthers and Tampa Bay Lightning.
