New York Rangers: Five troubling early season signs
Early in the 2017-18 season the Rangers have had their fair share of ups and downs. But what should have blue shirt fans the most worried?
Less than two weeks in to the season you can’t know too much. No one wins or loses the Stanley Cup after their first five or six games. In fact, the first fourth of the season often indicates very little in terms of what will be seen come March and April.
The New York Rangers started off the season with a couple of clunkers, a 4-2 loss to the Colorado Avalanche and the debacle that was an 8-5 thrashing against the Toronto Maple Leafs. A nice rebound against the Montreal Canadiens was followed by a demoralizing loss against the St. Louis Blues.
With a few games under their belt, the Rangers have shown some good signs. The power play looks explosive and the team has corrected their issues in the face-off dot for the time being. However, there have still been some troubling signs early in the 2017-18 season. Here are the top five for the Rangers.
Questionable Decisions
It didn’t take long for people to start questioning Vigneault in the 2017-18 season. In fact, it took a total of three games. After some interesting decisions in the Rangers series against the Ottawa Senators last spring, Vigneault has started right where he left off.
The 21st overall draft pick this year, Filip Chytil made the team out of training camp. However, just three games in to the season he was demoted to the AHL. While the 17 year-old showed some expected nerves, his upside was never showcased. Vigneault kept him confined to the bench for much of his brief stint at the NHL level. Last season the Rangers head coach made a habit of choosing aging veterans over young talent with tremendous upside. The trend has continued.
Furthermore, the Rangers most explosive defenseman last season, Brady Skjei, has been limited this season. As a rookie Skjei was nothing short of phenomenal. This season Vigneault has shown an unwillingness to let Skjei develop more as a player by keeping him off the power play. While Kevin Shattenkirk and Ryan McDonagh are rightly above Skjei on the depth chart, Skjei should be an easy choice for considerable time on the second unit, he’s not.
Vigneault hasn’t started the season off on the best foot. If the Rangers struggle, his decision making will come in to question one way or another.
The King?
Last season was the worst statistically of Henrik Lundqvist’s career. This year the King has shown some troubling signs. Forget giving up nine goals in the first five periods of the season. Forget the shutout of the Canadiens the night after being pulled in Toronto after two periods. For Hank the worry isn’t in the numbers this year.
What has been worrisome is Lundqvist rebound control and some soft goals he has let up early on this year. In the first game of the season, the game winning goal from the Avalanche was entirely Lundqvist fault. In game two he let in a couple soft goals against the Maple Leafs. That was a problem all of last year that Rangers fans haven’t been accustomed to with Lundqvist. The normally sure handed goaltender doesn’t look as sure handed any more.
Equally troubling has been the inability of Lundqvist to handle what seem to be fairly routine shots. Sure he has been stopping these pucks, but it looks like he is fighting it. There have been multiple occasions where a rebound that wasn’t controlled has lead to a quality chance for the opposition.
Lundqvist has bounced back time and time again in his career, but to see last years problems manifest so early this year isn’t the most comfortable feeling for the Ranger faithful.
Who’s the third D-pair?
Right now, there are a lot of question marks. Who will the Rangers eventually make their number five and six defensemen? As of now, it seems that Marc Staal and Anthony DeAngelo are ahead of the rest of the options, but their play suggests that may not last.
Staal at his best is just a decent defenseman. DeAngelo has looked shaky and has committed numerous puck handling errors early on. It is important for the Rangers to have a set three pairings this season after what happened last year in the playoffs. They need confidence in each pairing and right now there isn’t that when it comes to the final pairing. Skjei, Shattenkirk, McDonagh, and Smith are locks.
However, who the Rangers will look to fill the final two gaps is a mystery that isn’t solved yet. While there won’t be a huge issue early on in the season if spots five and six continue to be a revolving door, come trade deadline time, the Rangers will need to have a concrete defense core that they are confident in.
Best in the NHL
The two-time defending Stanley Cup Champs. The best regular season team since 2010. A recent powerhouse. And a whole bunch of teams who are never easy to beat. That is the beast that is the Metropolitan division.
This isn’t any secret, but the Rangers play in the best division in hockey and that itself is a troubling fact. It is very realistic to think five teams from the Metropolitan division will make the playoffs and that makes the margin for error so small for the Rangers.
The division is so good and so deep that even 95 points may be on the edge in terms of making the playoffs or not. The Rangers need to avoid any major lulls in the season or they could see their playoff hopes slip through their fingers sooner rather than later. Based on experience and how the teams stack up on paper, New York should be able to make the playoffs. But, anything less than a stellar regular season will mean a disappointing campaign for the Rangers.
Slow and not so steady
In the three losses so far this season, the Rangers have given up the first goal in under six minutes. That doesn’t bode well for a team who couldn’t hold leads last year, this year they can’t even grab the lead.
While the slow starts won’t always result in losses for New York, it is never easy to continuously dig yourself out of a hole. The Rangers have a good amount of firepower in this years lineup, but even the best offenses in the league operate better when they are ahead.
In the home opener against the Avalanche, the Rangers gave up a goal 5:26 into the game. Against the Maple Leafs, the first goal came just 2:30 into the contest. Against the Blues, all it took was 15 seconds for the Rangers to find themselves in a hole.
Next: Vigneault lineup debacles
The Rangers have had numerous struggles in their uninspiring start to the season. While the team has aspirations of a cup run, if they don’t clean up the issues arising early, they may be struggling for a playoff spot.