The Rangers power play is a problem that needs fixing
By Steve Paulus
When the Rangers added Artemi Panarin and Jacob Trouba last summer, the belief was that the power play would be a New York Rangers strength. While it’s been good, it hasn’t been good enough.
Artemi Panarin is headed for one of the greatest offensive seasons ever for the New York Rangers. What makes his season all the more remarkable is that he is scoring most of his points at even strength.
Panarin leads all NHL players in even strength points (52) and is third in even strength goals with 20. His 32 even strength assists are six more than runner up John Carlson. The fact that he isn’t padding his stats with power play points is making this season all the more remarkable.
The Rangers power play this season is 14th overall in the NHL with a 20.4% success rate. It’s an improvement over last season when they were 17th overall with a 19.4% mark. 2017-18, when the rebuild was announced, the Rangers were 14th overall at 21.2%. While this is an improvement over last season, it hasn’t been that much better.
Recent issues
The issues with the man advantage have become apparent over the last 14 games and they are hurting the team. In those games, the Rangers have scored eight goals on 43 power play opportunities, an 18.6% success rate. In that time, they have limped along with a 6-7-1 record with four of those losses by one goal. Score a couple more power plays goals and that record could have been 8-5-1 and they would be two points out of the wild card.
Their top power play unit of Panarin, Mika Zibanehad, Chris Kreider, Ryan Strome and Tony DeAngelo has scored five of those goals meaning the top five has scored five goals in 43 opportunities.
Three players get more ice tie on the power play than anyone else on the team. Panarin averages 3:48 of power play time per game and is on the ice for 68% of the team’s man advantages. Right behind him is Chris Kreider, averaging 3:42 per game and Mika Zibanejad, averaging 3:37. Their recent production is not living up to their ice time.
Artemi Panarin has scored one power play goal in his last 26 games though he has added 6 assists in that time. On the season, he has scored six power play goals. He has nine power play assists, of which only one is a primary assist.
Mika Zibanejad has scored two power plays in 14 games. He has had one power play assist since October 20, a span of 27 games.
Chris Kreider has scored two power play goals and added two power play assists in his last 23 games.