The New York Rangers missed the playoffs last season, but they didn’t exactly finish at the bottom of the league. Here’s how they compare to the teams that did.
The recent years of success for the the New York Rangers makes it hard to acknowledge the devastation that was last season. However, the only way for them to get better is to compare themselves to the competition.
Teams that finished in the bottom three (in order) were the Arizona Coyotes, Ottawa Senators, and Buffalo Sabres.
Here are some stats to compare the Rangers against these teams. This will shed some light on what they need to improve to get better come October 2018.
For reference, here are the Rangers’ stats:
New York Rangers:
Record: 34-39-9 77pts
Power Play%: 21.5%
Penalty Kill%: 81.4%
Goals Against Per Game: 3.21
Goals For Per Game: 2.78
Arizona Coyotes:
Record: 29-41-12 70pts
Power Play%: 16.9%
Penalty Kill%: 79.5%
Goals Against Per Game: 3.06
Goals For Per Game: 2.51
The Coyotes have a rather young core. Their problem is almost opposite of the Rangers’ because they suffer from a bad case of inexperience. Over the next few years, they’ll get better as their players get more ice time.
However, the one takeaway from this is that the Rangers had better special team percentages, which probably gave them their higher standing. Similarly, their goals for was less than their goals against.
Ottawa Senators
Record: 28-43-11 67pts
Power Play%: 16.6%
Penalty Kill%: 76.2%
Goals Against Per Game: 3.46
Goals For Per Game: 2.67
The Senators tried doing a mini rebuild of their own this past season. It didn’t exactly work out in their favor, but like with the Rangers, it’ll take time to see improvement.
Once again, the Rangers had better special teams, and the goals for was less than goals against by a rather large margin.
Buffalo Sabres:
25-45-12 62pts
Power Play%: 19.1%
Penalty Kill%: 77.9%
Goals Against Per Game: 3.39
Goals For Per Game: 2.41
The Sabres are another team in a rebuilding stage. However, theirs will likely take the longest amount of time considering they’re missing a lot of pieces. Somehow during the regular season, the Sabres always play close games with the Rangers and have won a lot of their recent matches.
What the Rangers can take away from a team like this is that having one or two really good players will not keep them in the competition. It’s about having a collectively strong roster with good chemistry.
Overall, the Rangers can make claim to having better special teams than the bottom three teams. Their goals for and goals against per game were relatively the same, so that’s something they need to drastically improve on. Hopefully with better defense that problem will resolve in a decent amount of time.
September is just around the corner. Only time will tell what the season will bring.