Rangers plan to replace injured Adam Fox ‘collectively’ with group effort
When Adam Fox is unable to play for the New York Rangers, it leaves a sizeable gap out on the ice because their top defenseman averages more than 23 minutes a night and is one the best playmakers in the NHL.
But with Fox on injured reserve after sustaining an upper-body injury in a 5-1 win against the New York Islanders on Tuesday, the Rangers must find a way to cover his heavy workload and on-ice production.
Zac Jones will draw into the lineup in Fox’s place. But no one player will replace all that Fox brings to the Rangers.
“Obviously we miss Fox, but we’ve got to make the most of it,” center Mika Zibanejad explained after practice Thursday. “It’s hard to straight up cover all the things that he brings and the skill that he has, but we’ve got to do it collectively and just go from there.”
Fox is expected to miss a significant amount of time, but his injury is not believed to be season-ending. He left the game Tuesday after falling hard on his left shoulder when tangled up with Islanders forward Kyle MacLean 3:16 into the third period.
On the brighter side, defenseman K’Andre Miller is not expected to miss time, and appears ready to play Friday against the Toronto Maple Leafs at Madison Square Garden.
Like Fox, Miller was hurt in the Islanders game, leaving in the second period with a lower-body injury. However, he practiced Thursday in a no-contact sweater. That’s a major sigh of relief since Miller is New York’s second-most talented defenseman after Fox, and losing both simultaneously would have been a major blow with the Rangers trying to secure a playoff spot in the Eastern Conference.
“Really, really happy about that,” coach Peter Laviolette said about Miller’s status. “That was positive, real positive.”
It will take a team effort to fill the void created by Fox’s injury. Fox is third among NHL defensemen with 43 assists and tied for third with 48 points. He leads the Rangers in assists and is second in scoring behind Artemi Panarin, who has 59 points.
Fox averages 23:13 TOI and plays in every important game situation, a significant hole that the Rangers will collectively have to make up for.
“He’s such an important part of the team,” coach Peter Laviolette said Thursday. “He plays so many minutes for us, so that’s always a tough break. Now we have an opportunity for others to step up and draw back in. It’s great timing that (Jones) had gone down (to Hartford last weekend on a conditioning stint) and played 25-30 minutes in games and got some game conditioning under his belt.”
Rangers make adjustments on defense, power play in absence of Adam Fox
Jones slots into the lineup, but two of three pairs will have a different look. It appears only the Miller pairing with Will Borgen will remain intact, based on practice Thursday.
K’Andre Miller – Will Borgen
Ryan Lindgren – Urho Vaakanainen
Zac Jones – Braden Schneider
There’s quite a bit to unpack here. First and foremost, this likely means that Miller is healthy enough to play on Friday against the Maple Leafs. Matthew Robertson was recalled from Hartford of the American Hockey League but practiced exclusively as the extra defenseman.
Miller and Borgen are a solid pair and now will likely see more minutes as the de facto top pair with Fox out.
Vaakanainen slots up to the second defense pair with Ryan Lindgren, who slots down from the top pair he usually plays with Fox. This is a new pairing for the Rangers, so it will be interesting to see how they mesh. Lindgren had one of his better games against the Islanders and has been playing well as of late. Vaakanainen played some top-four minutes at the 4 Nations Face-Off for Finland against some very good teams, and has held that role previously with the Anaheim Ducks.
Vaakanainen is not nearly the offensive threat Fox is, despite coming off his first three-point game in the NHL on Tuesday, when he had a goal and two assists against the Islanders. Also worth noting is that Vaakanainen is a left-shot shifting to the right side.
This leaves the third pair of Jones and Braden Schneider. Jones made an immediate impact with the Hartford Wolf Pack during his conditioning stint in the American Hockey League, scoring a big goal in their 6-5 win over the Providence Bruins last Saturday. Now he’ll slot into the lineup with Schneider as a familiar partner, since they’ve played together this season and in the past.
“New partner, new day, big game tomorrow so we’ll see how it goes,” Schneider said. “We’ve played a lot of games together, so we know each other’s games well. We communicate well out there, so full confidence and I’m looking forward to it.”
With Fox out of the lineup, it’ll take the whole team to make up for his absence, including Zibanejad who will be taking Fox’s spot quarterbacking the first power-play unit. This makes for an interesting look with five forwards on PP1, but Laviolette believes Zibanejad is the best option to run point with Fox out.
“It does happen. There’s been a lot of teams that have used five forwards before and so we’re just getting a look at it to see what that looked like,” Laviolette explained. “If it did go that way I feel like Mika is someone who can read positions and read that spot and be able to manage that.”
It’s somewhat surprising that Jones, an offensive defenseman, won’t get the first crack at running the power play. Thursday, he practiced on the second unit paired with Miller at the points.
Jones has eight points (one goal, seven assists) in 28 games this season.
The Rangers are two points back of the second wild card in the Eastern Conference with 62 points. They’re chasing the Columbus Blue Jackets (64 points) and the Detroit Red Wings (66), who are set to face each other both Thursday night and on Saturday in the 2025 NHL Stadium Series at Ohio Stadium.
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