New York Rangers: Defensive deployment is key for special teams

After the arrival of some summer reinforcements, the New York Rangers appear ready to ice some top-end special teams units, especially on defense.

The New York Rangers had some clear deficiencies on defense over the past few seasons. The power play was hot and cold, as usual. Penalty killing—a strength for most of the past decade—was a mess at times.

But with the measures taken by General Manager Jeff Gorton, the Rangers addressed these problems. Whether by addition or subtraction, the Rangers’ special teams defensive units will look dramatically different from last year.

Mainstay names are gone, and new, exciting players are prepped to take on bigger roles for the team.

The likes of Kevin Shattenkirk and Anthony DeAngelo are now part of the roster. Rangers stalwart Dan Girardi is now in Tampa Bay after an offseason buyout. Moreover, the roles of returning players will be shifting.

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Power up

The New York Rangers have been searching for a cure to their power play woes for years. In many ways, Kevin Shattenkirk is just the next in a long line of high-priced free agents brought in to solve the problem. Whether it was Dan Boyle, Keith Yandle, Brad Richards, Martin St. Louis, or even Wade Redden, the Rangers haven’t been shy about going after the summer market.

But unlike those past players (with the possible exception of the painfully misused Yandle), Shattenkirk has game-breaking results on the power play.

There is no doubt that Shattenkirk will man the point of the Rangers’ top power play unit this coming season. This is immediately a drastic improvement.

Last season, Ryan McDonagh spent the majority of the time on the top power play unit. The result was that he was forced to shoulder an immense load in all game situations. The emergence of Brady Skjei helped, but McDonagh was still the go-to player.

With Shattenkirk, the Rangers are free to lighten McDonagh’s workload, keeping him fresher for even strength and penalty kill time.

Meanwhile, Skjei can continue to grow while playing on the second unit. Ideally, he will skate on the left point, with DeAngelo on the right side.

DeAngelo has already proven his skill on the power play, with 8 of his 14 career points coming on the man advantage.

The Rangers can run two effective power play groups with these three defensemen seeing the bulk of the distribution duties.

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Improving the penalty kill

What was once a noted strength for the New York Rangers turned into a big weakness last season. The penalty kill was shaky at best and atrocious at worst. Part of the issue was the overwork of McDonagh, but the continued declining play of Girardi and Kevin Klein didn’t help.

Here, however, is one of the few bright spots for Marc Staal. Staal’s penalty killing actually improved in 2016-17.

According to Natural Stat Trick, the Rangers gave up nearly 10 fewer scoring chances per 60 minutes with Staal on the ice than they did the previous season. For comparison, with Girardi on the ice, the Rangers gave up 57.99 scoring chances per 60 minutes; with Staal, that number was 51.07.

In penalty killing situations, Staal’s long reach and physicality helps. He’s adept at breaking up plays in the corners.

So while Staal’s even strength minutes should be limited, he can handle heavy penalty killing.

Similarly, Brendan Smith has demonstrated a resurgence in shot suppression and denying zone entries. He was especially impressive during the 2017 playoffs.

Running two penalty killing duos of McDonagh/Staal and Skjei/Smith allows the Rangers to keep their most efficient defensive zone players on the ice and protects the more offensively oriented players in Shattenkirk and DeAngelo.

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Jeff Gorton has managed to construct a compartmentalized group of defensemen. When deployed favorably, head coach Alain Vigneault should be able to maximize their effectiveness while keeping players like McDonagh and Shattenkirk as fresh as possible.