The New York Rangers rebuild will take a few years to work. This upcoming season is going to be forcing a square peg in a round hole.
Unfortunately, after more than a decade of sustained success, the Henrik Lundqvist era is going to go out with a whimper. The New York Ranger’s signature player has done all he could to drag lesser teams as far as possible. Now, with just three years remaining on his contract, the goaltender will have the worst team of his entire career in front of him.
First, there is the overall issue of the roster’s fluidity. Outside of a few players, there really is no sense of long term consistency. Pretty much anyone on the roster aside from Filip Chytil and Lias Andersson are fair game for a trade. As the team’s front office looks to the long term future, there will be pains in the present.
In all likelihood, the Rangers are going to feature one of the league’s worst defenses. The team lacks a true number one defenseman and that will be the biggest issue. No team can thrive without a defenseman capable of playing 25 minutes a night of quality ice time. Trading Ryan McDonagh made sense at the deadline, but now it leaves a vacuum.
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The recipe for the worst season since before the 2004-2005 lockout is stirring. Terrible defense, a weak forward group and an aging Lundqvist seems like a bad combo.
Defense wins championships
This past season, the Rangers defense was an outright abomination. By design the defenseman overloaded one side of the ice to pressure the puck carrier. In theory, this would force a turnover. However, in practice it would leave a player undefended in the offensive zone. This created what seemed like an infinite loop of tap in goals on the opposite side.
Now, the team will venture into the great unknown of a full season without McDonagh. Sure, Kevin Shattenkirk is a quality first pair defenseman. However, he does not fit the style of play of a good team’s number one guy. Shattenkirk posts quality offensive and underlying stats, but is a tad suspect in his own end of the ice. The New Rochelle native cannot be seriously expected to play 25 minutes a night against the other team’s best forwards.
In addition to the lack of a true number one, there is the looming Brady Skjei situation. By default, Skjei stepped into McDonagh’s old role this past season, and looked overwhelmed. This was his fist venture into top pair minutes at the NHL level and it showed. Now, Skjei has shown the ability to play at a high level in the NHL. But, he would be better off playing as a high end second pair defenseman.
Outside of Skjei and Shattenkirk it is a bundle of unknowns. Marc Staal, Brendan Smith, Tony DeAngelo, Neal Pionk, John Gilmour, Steve Kampfer, Libor Hajek and Frederik Claesson all figure to at least get a shot during training camp. That is not exactly the 2002 New Jersey Devils defending the blue line.
Funky forwards
At face value, the Rangers have a decent compilation of NHL regulars at the forward position. In fact, they have a handful of players that are in the upper echelon of their specific role. Chris Kreider is one of the league’s best net front players and ranks amongst the best in the league in terms of deflection goals.
There are also Mika Zibanejad, Pavel Buchnevich, Kevin Hayes and Mats Zuccarello. The Swedish center has a good shot of reaching the 70 point mark if he can just stay healthy. As for Buchnevich, this is the season in which the training wheels are coming off. If he can handle top line minutes, the Rangers would be in decent shape. Then, both Zuccarello and Hayes are quality second line players that can flirt with 60 points in the right environment.
That brings the team to its great unknown, Filip Chytil and Lias Andersson. Both of the forwards are expected to at least play in the NHL during this upcoming year. It would be a true let down if either forward failed to make the team out of training camp. Chytil and Andersson both looked like they belonged during their seven game end of season audition.
In conclusion
The Rangers are almost a stone cold lock for seventh place in the Metropolitan division. Every other team, sans the New York Islanders, have better roster talent. Even if the reigning Hart trophy winner, Taylor Hall, reverts back to his normal production, the New Jersey Devils would still likely finish above the Rangers.
So, with the problems on the roster and the quality of the teams within the division, this looks to be a season of learning. The team will have to deal with losing and ride out the tough waters. If the Rangers were to add another top pair defenseman, they could probably leap frog up a few spots, but there would still be considerable holes in the lineup.
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Optimism is part of the job for any fan, however, it is important to be realistic. A team has to lose during a rebuilding process, those are simply the rules. Being that the team does not have quality players to fill holes from inside the organization, they have to wait for prospects to develop. The 2018-2019 Rangers are going to stink like a Manhattan sidewalk in August.