New York Rangers: Just how good is Chris Kreider?

In Chris Kreider’s seventh NHL season, the Boston College product is finally living up to expectations. Just how good of a forward is the Boxford, Massachusetts native?

After years of scratching the surface, New York Rangers forward Chris Kreider has finally put it all together. For several years, the winger always showed his skill in spurts and pick and chose his spots. However, with a new head coach in David Quinn, Kreider is being pushed like he never was before and it’s yielding results.

Having a coach constantly on Kreider to play like he’s capable of has the forward on pace for the best statistical season of his career. The constant badgering of a hands-on head coach is pushing Kreider to a level we’ve only gotten glimpses of. The CEO style of former coach Alain Vigneault simply didn’t push the right buttons enough with the former Boston College Eagle.

Even an established veteran in the league was not immune to Quinn’s ire for slacking during practice. Back in November, Kreider told Larry Brooks of the New York Post about a specific instance in which he recalled Quinn getting on his case.

"“When are you going to stop cheating!” the coach exclaimed, halting the drill before demonstrating what he wanted and expected from No. 20, who had been circling in the neutral zone awaiting a headman pass."

The starkest contrast between Vigneault and Quinn is the level of engagement from the team. Even though Quinn’s roster pales in comparison talent wise to what Vigneault had for his tenure, the 2018-2019 Rangers simply do not quit on games, no matter how big of a gap on the scoreboard.

Comparisons

For a baseline of an elite forward in the NHL, we’ll compare Kreider to the newest member of the Vegas Golden Knights, Mark Stone. Although the former Ottawa Senator is a class above Kreider in terms of talent, they play a similar style of game and were both hot commodities at this past NHL trade deadline.

Starting with Kreider, his style of play is oriented around size and speed. For the forward to be effective, he needs to either use his speed to gain the offensive zone or be able to beat the defenseman to the puck in a corner that was dumped in. The Boston College product enters the zone within the 62nd percentile of players, a decent amount above the league average.

As for Stone, the forward checks in at the 72nd percentile for succesful zone entries. Now, to be fair, Stone and Kreider play different styles and serve different roles on their respective lines. A significant part of the Rangers game plan is oriented around quick transition and getting to offense as seamlessly as possible.

Using CJ Turtoro’s player comparison tool, we get an accurate representation of the differences between an elite forward and a very good forward. Stone is clearly the focal point of his line any time he’s on the ice, creating both shots and assists at a higher rate than Kreider. However, the Ranger edges out the Knight in terms of shots per 60 minutes of ice time.

In addition to offensive stats, Stone and Kreider are relatively close in terms of both successful zone entries and exits. As previously mentioned, the Rangers really push to get out of the zone as quickly as possible which allows Kreider to use his speed in a way that Stone simply cannot.

The numbers also reveal that Stone is better at gaining the offensive zone through carry-ins. However, this does not tell the entire story because it is occasionally a better play for Kreider to dump the puck in to go and get it to utilize his speed. So, just because he doesn’t carry the puck into the zone as well, does not mean he’s any less effective at gaining the zone.

Where’s Kreider?

Part of what makes both Kreider and Stone valuable players are their physical attributes. Both wingers are 6’4 and weigh around 220 pounds. Those considerable frames allow them to navigate the tough parts of the ice in a way that smaller players physically aren’t able to. However, they use their size in different ways.

For most of Kreider’s career, he’s used his size to set up shop around the net front to either redirect an oncoming puck or to cash in rebounds from high danger chances. By their very nature, redirects are a higher quality scoring chance than a shot from the point because of the unpredictability of the angle the puck will take and how close they are to the net.

For a three year period (2014-2017) Kreider was the single best player in the entire NHL at scoring on redirections. As Travis Yost of TSN explained:

"Tipping shots isn’t the easiest task, but it sure can be effective. Scoring rates on tip drills vastly exceed those on slap, snap, backhand, wrist, and even wraparound attempts. And it’s not particularly close."

Kreider is in an elite class when it comes to redirecting the puck and working the net front. This season, the forward leads the Rangers in high danger scoring chances for. Naturally, being closer to the net qualifies as a high danger scoring chance, these are better quality shots and more likely to result in a goal.

As the diagram above explains, the area between the circles from the hash marks and down to the goal line are where the better chances come from.

Getting Stone’d

When it comes to Stone, the forward is more of a shooter than a net-front player. It’s worth mentioning that the Knight winger has 62 points on the season, 20 more than Kreider has recorded thus far in the season. So, just because he doesn’t go to the net front doesn’t mean he has difficulty scoring.

In fact, when Stone is on the ice, his team generates half a more shot per hour than the league average as shown above. The conventional logic being that the more shots a team has, the more likely that one will eventually be a goal, so the more the better.

Even though Stone does create lots of scoring chances in these high danger areas, he actually trails Kreider in terms of the raw number of them. Kreider has 72 whereas Stone has 54, so this is where things need to go a layer deeper.

Stone is about a three percent (16.2) better a shooter than Kreider (13.3) for their respective careers. If the Ranger alternate captain is in the midst of his single best year of shooting percentage, 15.3 and Stone is shooting 19.3 for the 2018-2019 season. So, if we were to nudge Kreider up to Stone’s shooting percentage, he’d have 33 goals on the year.

Simply put, Stone is a better shooter than Kreider and that’s not something that can be improved. At this point in the Massachusets native’s career, he’s not going to suddenly get better at shooting on breakaways and become a 40 goal threat.

Driver or anchor

The last area to explore is whether Kreider or Stone help make their linemates better through their play. The main measure of this will come down to the number of scoring chances that the teammates create with and without them on their line as well as relative to the entire team average.

Starting with Kreider, his most common linemates this season were Mika Zibanejad and Mats Zuccarello. As a line, the three were a 54 percent Corsi For, meaning that they created 54 percent of the scoring chances in the game at five on five while together. Without Kreider, the line dropped all the way down to 42.27.

Compared to the rest of the Rangers, Kreider is a positive seven percent Corsi Relative. Meaning that he’s seven percent better than the team average at creating scoring chances. That’s not insignificant, being that New York is such a dreadful possession team as a whole. In essence, Kreider makes what’s good about the team better.

In comparison, Stone’s most common linemates were Brady Tkachuk and Colin White. As a group, they created at a rate of 52.12 CF percent, less than what Kreider and his linemates were able to do. Without Stone, White and Tkachuk, two young players, produced at 44.76 CF%. Compared to the rest of his team, Stone was a 4.6 Corsi Relative.

So, at least in terms of driving possession, Kreider outranks Stone. Though as anyone will tell you, it doesn’t matter how many chances you create if they don’t eventually go into the net.

Final thoughts

In the grand scheme of things, Kreider is a valuable piece. He’s never going to be the best player on a Stanley Cup winning team, but a complementary part that alongside an elite talent could make a tremendous impact. When it’s come down to it, Kreider has played absolutely amazing hockey come postseason time, something totally invaluable.

The final two periods that Kreider played against the Senators in game six of the Atlantic Divison final in 2017 were two of the best any Ranger played this entire decade. The former Eagle was constantly using his speed to get the slower defensemen of Ottawa on their heels.

It’d be interesting to know what type of offers the Rangers were hearing for Kreider on deadline day to compare it to what the Senators ultimately got for Stone. There’s a clear difference in terms of the total production of the two, Stone is better by about ten points or so per season on average.

The newest Golden Knight and the club have agreed to an eight-year deal worth $9.5 million that cannot be signed until March 1st due to league rules.

As of now, Kreider is still on an extremely friendly team deal that was signed back in 2016 worth $4.625 million per year. The contract expires next summer and makes the forward due for a significant pay raise. With an increasing salary cap this year and Kreider in the midst of a career year, he can expect a nice jump.

It’d likely take at least $6.5 million per year if not more for Kreider to ink a long-term deal with the Rangers. On the open market, he could easily command north of $7 million from a bad team desperate to overhaul its lineup.

New York will have around $20 million of cap space this upcoming year and even more the following summer when Kreider is a free agent barring any significant deals. Either way, New York needs to determine the future of its best winger sooner rather than later.

In the right scenario, Kreider could take a step forward and jump from a 45 point player to a 55 point player and join Stone as one of the best wingers in the entire league. It’s just a matter of putting him in the right position.