New York Rangers Must Address Defensive Struggles
Over the past number of seasons the New York Rangers have been a team closely associated with defense and winning low scoring games. However, this season that has not exactly been the case. The Rangers are scoring more goals then usual, which is a big plus, but have also been surrendering way more goals then we are accustomed to seeing.
For example, in past seasons if the Rangers had a multiple goal lead, it was almost automatic that they would win that game, unless of course we were playing the Los Angeles Kings in the Stanley Cup Final.
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This season though, the Rangers are coming off of back to back games where they have blown 2 goal leads, one on the road against the Detroit Red Wings where they lost in regulation 3-2 and one at home against the Pittsburgh Penguins where the Rangers were able to win in overtime 4-3.
With the Rangers goal this season to make the playoffs and get back to the Stanley Cup Final, I have to say that is near impossible with the way they are playing defensively right now, which is why I say the Rangers must address this problem.
Now these defensive struggles that the Rangers are currently going through does not rest squarely on the shoulders of the team’s defensemen. While the Rangers defensemen do need to step up and play tighter defensively, starting goaltender Henrik Lundqvist also has to up his game, and the forwards have to do a lot better on the backcheck.
It is so crucial in today’s NHL to have two-way forwards who not only produce offensively but also hustle back and help out defensively, which recently we have not seen enough of out of the Rangers forwards.
In my opinion, what I think would help the Rangers in addressing their defensive woes is trading for a two-way center like Antoine Vermette of the Arizona Coyotes. Vermette is a solid 2nd line/3rd line veteran center in his early 30s that plays well both offensively and defensively, has very good speed, and has a faceoff percentage of over 50%.
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I like current rookie 3rd line center Kevin Hayes, but in all honesty he would be better served playing his natural position of right wing because he is near the bottom of the league on faceoff percentage and many fail to realize the relationship between winning faceoffs and defense. If you are a team that’s good at winning faceoffs then you will have more possession of the puck, and if you have greater puck possession time then obviously you will give up less goals and scoring opportunities against because you will have the puck a lot more than the opposition.
Now the only problem with getting Vermette is his cap hit, which is just under $4 million per season. However, I feel Rangers defenseman Marc Staal could very well be playing his last season in a Rangers uniform, since he is an unrestricted free agent at the end of this season and wants $6 million per year in his new contract, and the Rangers just cannot afford to pay him that with their tight salary cap situation. This is why I think the Rangers will have to deal Staal and in doing so would give the Rangers enough cap space to acquire Vermette in a trade.
It does seem ironic that in order to get better defensively you trade a defenseman for a center but with Staal just not being the same dominant defensive player he once was, before all of his unfortunate injuries, trading him at this point and finding a cheaper alternative defenseman may be the way to go.
But that’s just one man’s opinion. What’s yours?