After a hot start to the season, the New York Rangers have been sliding as of late. A main component of the slide has been the lack of offense. This will look at how the Rangers’ offensive distribution stands up to the rest of the NHL.
The New York Rangers were off to a very strong start in their first true rebuilding season. After six weeks, the team rode a winning streak to third place in the Metropolitan Division. Since then, the team has dropped out of a playoff spot. While there is not just one reason for this, the drop-off in scoring is a major one.
I will be taking a deep dive into the Rangers’ scoring distribution, by line, and comparing it to some of the top teams in the NHL. To begin, we’ll use the Rangers’ lineup from Saturday for this analysis:
First Line: Chris Kreider, Mika Zibanejad, and Kevin Hayes
Second Line: Jimmy Vesey, Ryan Strome, and Filip Chytil
Third Line: Vlad Namestnikov, Brett Howden, and Jesper Fast
Fourth Line: Matt Beleskey, Lias Andersson, and Steven Fogarty
The Rangers have scored 83 goals this season, leaving them tied for 22nd in the NHL in total goals. The top line accounts for 36% of the Rangers’ goals, as Kreider leads the way on the roster with 14 goals. There is considerable drop-off from that mark.
The second line is bolstered by Vesey’s production, accounting for 19% of total goals scored. The third and fourth lines provide 12% and 2%, respectively. This leaves 31% of the Rangers’ total scoring to the defensemen and injured forwards. The injuries to Pavel Buchnevich and Mats Zuccarello have hurt massively as those two players account for just under 10% of the Rangers’ goals.
Head coach David Quinn has already stated his intention to remove Kevin Hayes from the first forward line. However, for the sake of consistency with my source of information, I will be leaving him on the first line.
For this article, I have opted to look at the two of the top teams from each conference. To try to get some insight into how the Rangers’ offense compares to some of the top teams in the league, I took a look at the goal scoring for the lines currently playing for those teams. While injuries and and lineup changes certainly affect the numbers, this still gives a sense of how the scoring is distributed.
*All data comes from NHL.com and line combinations come from dailyfaceoff.com. Both are current as of the conclusion of the NHL games on December 11.*
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