New York Rangers: Is the team playing it too safe style wise?

Following the first game of the season for the New York Rangers, one thing is clear. The team is trying to minimize risk as much as possible.

After a painfully long summer, the New York Rangers got back on the ice for a real game that counted. After a season that went about as wrong as humanly possible, the team was looking to get off to a solid start. While New York ended up losing its first game 3-2 the style of play and level of effort was impressive against Nashville.

The Predators are one of the best teams in the entire NHL, so the Rangers hanging in the game as long as it did is a foundational performance. Meaning that the team can take meaningful steps going forward based on how it played especially in regards to what did and did not work.

Part of what worked well for New York was keeping the game simple. There were only a handful of defensive breakdowns over the course of the game. Being that most of them came when the Marc Staal and Neal Pionk pair was on the ice, it is easy to draw deductions.

As a whole, the Rangers played things safe in hopes of keeping the game close. This is a departure from the past several seasons in which it was commonplace for the Rangers’ players to take risks in the hope of creating odd-man rushes. The theory being that an odd-man rush scoring chance is more valuable than an even one.

Now, the team is focused on making the smart play that mitigates risk. In terms of pure conceptual thinking, a team always making the safe play is a formula to stay close in a lot of games. However, over the course of an entire season, the team needs to pick its spots as to when to go for it.

Against Nashville, it was clear that the Rangers were just trying to get the puck moving as quickly as possible. Instead of going east-west in the hopes of springing a long pass, it was simply always going north. Based on the types of players that New York features in its lineup, this makes sense.

Final thoughts

While the Rangers will likely be outmatched from a talent perspective on most nights, that does not mean it cannot be closely contested games. If anything, the team should be able to keep things competitive through the use of a conservative approach. Taking risks is a part of the game of hockey, however, they must come at a time that they make sense.

For instance, against Nashville, the Predators did an effective job of clogging the neutral zone to stop the Rangers from using its speed. In holding strong in the neutral zone, the Predators forced the Rangers to pick their spots as far as getting into the offensive zone. Instead of clean zone entries, New York had to dump and chase.

For the most part, this approach worked. The Predators are a more talented team capable of winning the Stanley Cup. For about 55 of the 60 minutes in the game, the Rangers hung in there playing an aggressive style of hockey on defense. Quick transitions and smart low-risk passes were a formula to keep things close.

If the Rangers are going to take strides this season as a rebuilding club, a low-risk approach makes lots of sense. Instead of forcing the puck in hopes of making a big play, the safe open pass is a reliable high percentage play. It’ll just be a matter of not only playing it safe, every now and then, but the Rangers will also need a homerun pass.