New York Rangers Report Card: Neal Pionk

Neal Pionk established himself with the New York Rangers as a top six defenseman playing a lot of minutes, but he hit some rough spots as the season progressed.

Neal Pionk: Grade C

As we continue our look at the 2018-19 New York Rangers, we turn our attention to one of the Restricted Free Agents on the team, Neal Pionk.  Here’s a look at Pionk’s first full season.

His Season

Neal Pionk’s season was a mediocre one at best. His inconsistency this season will not help him in getting paid this summer, but more importantly,  it didn’t help the team.

Pionk played in 73 games this season with the Rangers. He put in 6 goals and had 20 helpers for 26 points. While that isn’t terrible for a player like Pionk, what hurt him was his -16 plus/minus  rating.

To be fair, no one had a good plus / minus this season on the team, the best was a +6 by Tony DeAngelo and Brendan Lemieux. Filip Chytil had the worst with a -22 rating, and right behind him was Pionk tied with Brett Howden at -16.

Pionk was on the ice a lot this season, averaging about 21 minutes a game. He saw a lot of power play time, especially early in the season. His average of 1:30 per game on the power play was third among defensemen on the team. In fact 13 of his 26 points were with the man advantage, best on the team from the blueline corps.

The highlight of his season was an end to end rush against the Montreal Canadiens that ended in a goal.

Despite that goal, we all can agree that Pionk isn’t an Erik Karlsson type of talent, but 26 points in 73 games, for an offensive defenseman who averaged just above 21 minutes a game and played on the power play, isn’t that productive.  However, his six goals was second only to Brady Skjei and his 20 assists was third among defensemen.

Even though he is an offensive defenseman, he is still a defensemen, and that always comes first when you’re on defense. He had 98 blocked shots and 138 hits, he also had 38 takeaways.

 Why the grade?

Neal Pionk gets a C because of his inconsistent point production.

Five times this season he went four games or more without getting a single point, with one of those stretches as long as eleven games. Two other times, he went eight games without a point.

There is some evidence that the heavy early season workload wore him down.  He had five goals and 14 assists in his first 32 games.  Over his last 41 games he had only one goal and six assists.

To be a good offensive defensemen in the NHL you can’t be that inconsistent with your point production.  In fact, he scored only one goal after December 23, a span of 51 games.

Anyone who watches hockey could see that Pionk’s year on defense was mediocre, not only from his plus-minus rating. He got beat many times, was often caught too low in the offensive zone. While these were issues for Pionk,  this is what you might expect with so many young defensemen on the team.

Pionk’s season was kind of meh actually. You have to consider Pionk getting a C a pretty good grade considering the team surrounding him.

Despite this season, I really like Neal Pionk. He has many upsides: he’s fast, has a good shot and can run the power play. He has to step up his production and get better defensively, but that goes for almost everyone on the Rangers’ defense this season.

The numbers

Games: 73
Goals: 6
Assists: 20
Points: 26
Power Play Goals: 2
Power Play Points: 13
Shooting Percentage: 4.5%
Shots on Goal: 132
Plus / Minus: -16
PIM: 35
Hits: 138
Corsi For %: 43.9
ATOI: 21:10

Next report card: Kevin Shattenkirk