New York Rangers: Early thoughts on early days

The defense

One the defensive side, it’s a bit of chaos. Trouba is certainly the leader of the pack, but he’s had some issues deep in his own zone.  The guy that looks to be unflappable back there is Libor Hajek, he just plays a solid game, I cannot really point to any glaring mistakes after six games.  You get what you expect from Marc Staal, he’s just a pro.

The real issue has been Brady Skjei.  He appears very tentative, as if he is afraid to make a mistake and find himself in David Quinn’s dog house. Let’s hope it is nothing more than a confidence issue.

On the other hand, Adam Fox does not appear to be afraid to make a mistake and is playing with a real sense of confidence. Now, that confidence has certainly gotten him in trouble more than a few times so far this season, but you have to think that Quinn has no issues with that type of play. The coach often says if a player’s intentions are right, the mistakes don’t matter.

The point is, if a young kid is playing aggressively and makes a mistake, it is a learning opportunity, and it’s on the coaches to teach the lesson. But if a guy is playing scared, as Skjei really seems to be, the coaches are in a bit of a bind because you can’t teach confidence.

And finally there is Tony DeAngelo.  An atrocious play behind the net against the Capitals on Friday night lead the Caps second goal and to him watching pretty much the rest of the game from the bench. At least every Rangers fan should hope it was that play that lead to the benching and not some other “issue” popping up yet again.

Next Two Weeks

All told, it’s clearly still very early, and there is no reason to panic.  But the strange schedule to start to the season is no longer an excuse for not showing up ready to play. The poor efforts against Edmonton, New Jersey, Washington and Vancouver are the end of that rope.  The extraordinary effort put forth in the third period of the Canucks game needs to be the effort put forth in the first period against Arizona on Tuesday night.

An effort like that should bring the next W, and this team desperately needs a W. The team needs to build chemistry, and you simply don’t build team chemistry while losing,  This lab experiment will only work if the team starts winning.