With the New York Rangers sitting out a full week in between games, Rangers General Manager Jeff Gorton and Coach David Quinn provided some answers to questions raised after the first two games.
Everything is going well in the world of the New York Rangers. They are undefeated in two games and boast the NHL’s Player of the Week and leading scorer in Mika Zibanejad. They did trade Vladislav Namestnikov and both Jeff Gorton and David Quinn addressed the trade and other issues in availabilities the last two days.
The Namestnikov trade
David Quinn spoke about team depth when asked about the deal: “Vlad did a good job for us…we feel we have good guys that are going to be able assume more responsibility. He’s a good player, it’s a good opportunity for him.”
Jeff Gorton made it clear that the trade was made to clear cap space, but that team depth was a factor. He said “We’re sad to see Vlad go. He was a good Ranger for us in the time he was here, a versatile player. We wish him good luck and it was move we had to make and we had some depth and the cap room helps us moving forward.”
When asked if it was cap space or depth that forced the deal he said “I think it’s a combo of everything. I think we feel like we are a deep enough group of forwards that we can replace Vlad and give some other people opportunities and at the same time the cap always factors in.”
Gorton also admitted that the team had been trying to deal Namestnikov all summer. He stressed the importance of cap space flexibility noting that they are now able to make some moves compared to teams up against the cap. The Rangers now have $4.6 million in cap space.
While Quinn wouldn’t say if the team was prepared to call anyone up to replace him in the lineup, Gorton put an end to speculation that we will be seeing Filip Chytil or Vitali Kravtsov anytime soon saying “We’re going to go with what we have.”
Gorton also hinted that we won’t be seeing much of Nick Ebert, the defenseman acquired in the deal. “He was assigned to Hartford…he’s had success at that level. We’ll get him acclimated to the Rangers and Hartford and see how he does. Hopefully he plays well and puts pressure on us to take notice.”
Balanced scoring
While the Rangers have won two games, they haven’t seen much offensive production from anybody except the Zibanejad line and the power play. Quinn is obviously concerned.
“Without question if you want to have success consistently in this league your forwards have to be productive not just the top scorers. We’e got guys who are proven scorers who have done some scoring at this level on the other three lines and they need to be more productive offensively. We have faith they’ll do that.”
He returned to theme he harped on last season: “We’ve got to shoot more pucks. I said this all last year, we’ve gotta shoot more pucks. If we do that we’re gonna be able get people turned around and create more offense that way” He continued “It’s almost like we don’t shoot unless we think were gonna score….or we have an opportunity to beat somebody to the net and we slow up a little bit. We just have to play faster in the offensive zone…(The second line) was a little bit better the other night we need a little more out of them…we need a little more out of the other three lines.