New York Rangers: Just how good of a player was Ryan McDonagh?
The New York Rangers got seven seasons out of Ryan McDonagh after landing the defenseman for an aging overpaid veteran. Diminishing his tenure is a result of recency bias.
As the final 20 games of the Rangers season prove, defense is important. For an entire month the team simply had a floundering abomination of a defense. As a whole, the unit was poorly organized with little structure on the ice. Once the team dealt its number one defenseman, the team lost any semblance of hope.
The Rangers acquired McDonagh on June 30th of 2009 from the Montreal Canadiens for Scott Gomez, Tom Pyatt and Michael Busto. Even at the time it was clear that this deal would be a steal for the Rangers. The team was getting out from under a bad long term contract and picking up a young defenseman with room to grow. In addition, the University of Wisconsin alumni grew at a rapid pace.
After just one season in the AHL, McDonagh made the jump to John Tortorella’s black and blue shirts. If nothing else, the teams under Tortorella played quality defense and made every game a slog. The Rangers would attempt to grind the other team into a pulp and outlast their opposition.
Related Story: Would firing Vigneault sooner have fixed the problem?
Following Tortorella’s firing, the Rangers brought in Alain Vigneault to serve as head coach. It was under Vigneault that McDonagh blossomed into a two way defenseman. The new coach’s system oriented around taking chances to generate offense fit McDonagh perfectly. If he jumped up into a play, he could use his speed to recover
The $5.5 million dollar anchor
For a while, the Rangers had one of the best defensive pairs in the entire league. The team featured a top pair of McDonagh and Dan Girardi. As a top pair, the two defenseman could be used in any situation against any opponent. It is not a stretch to say they were a top ten defensive pair during the 2011-2012, 2013 and part of the 2014 season.
However, the pair’s play began to erode over time. This was due to Girardi aging in dog years from his breakneck physically demanding style of play. Mashing bodies in the corner, blocking shots and playing more minutes than anyone else on the team added up. By the end of the Rangers Stanley Cup run in 2014, it was clear that Girardi was no longer the same player.
Yet, even with a sagging Girardi, McDonagh was still able to shine as a great player. Using the 2014 season as the point of no return, it is easy to see why the team’s overall quality of defense deteriorated so rapidly. During the 2013-2014 season, as a pair, McDonagh and Girardi posted a 49.79 Corsi For percentage. This stat means that when McDonagh and Girardi were on the ice, the Rangers only generated 49.79% of the shots.
Without Girardi as a partner, McDonagh’s CF% jumped all the way up to 56.50%. That means when McDonagh was on the ice without Girardi, the team had nearly 60% of the shots.
Lagging behind
Simply put, McDonagh had not had a proper top pairing defensive partner after the 2014 season. During both the 2015-2016 and 2016-2017 season, Girardi posted amongst the worst analytical metrics of any defenseman in the entire NHL. When a team’s top pair so so unbalanced, it is naturally going to inhibit the team’s ability to succeed.
In a vacuum, Girardi was still an NHL player, as he showed this season with Tampa Bay. If used in a limited role with the mixture of zone starts, he was able to not be an outright liability. However, while he was still in New York Alain Vingeualt used Girardi as if he was the same guy he was five years prior. This in turn dragged McDonagh’s play down because he was forced to cover for his partner at all times.
Trying to serve the role of two players at the same time was an impossible task for even a defenseman as good as McDonagh. That is why over the past three seasons it always seemed that McDonagh was the one chasing down a breakaway from behind. Since Girardi would not be able to keep up with the play, the captain would do everything he could.
The facts
It is not a stretch to say that McDonagh was the best Rangers defenseman since Brian Leetch. Now, that is not to say they were comparable in terms of skill or production, but in terms of what role they filled. The league that Leetch played in was a wide open offensive game in which he dominated. The modern NHL is played much tighter and defenseman simply just do not post 100 point seasons.
But, that is not to take away from McDonagh in any way. The defenseman played in all three phases of the game, five on five, power play and penalty kill, while being above average at all of them. An average McDonagh season in New York was .46 points per game with a 49.6 CF% while starting 54.7% of the time in the defensive zone. McDonagh’s ability to drive possession even though he started so often in the defensive zone is a testament to his skill.
Think of it like this, the Rangers lacked any semblance of a clue on the blue line following the McDonagh trade. Sure, Brady Skjei will probably get to the point where he can play on the top defensive pair. The Rangers defense was a frantic and disorganized unit with no dependable players for the final 20 games of the season. It seemed that whoever the team was playing that particular night could have their way for the entire night.
Next: Five players who will benefit from David Quinn
The Rangers probably had to trade McDonagh because he did not fit their window of contention anymore. However, pretending that McDonagh was not one of the best defenseman in the entire NHL because of recency bias is unfair. The team will miss him for a lot longer than their current level of planning suggests.