New York Rangers: The realities of the Chris Kreider injury
The news was shocking to all fans of the New York Rangers. A fractured foot for Chris Kreider, just days after he signed a seven year, $45.5 million contract.
There’s no argument. Chris Kreider’s fractured foot will have an effect on the New York Rangers and their quest to make the playoffs. Losing a top six forward who is a clutch scorer, a physical net front presence and a constant threat due to his speed will hurt.
The reaction in Rangerland was swift and could be divided into three groups. Let’s call the first group “The Realists.” They shrugged their shoulders and recognized the challenge facing the New York Rangers in their fight to make the playoffs. They understand that injuries are part of the game and that the Rangers have had fewer injuries to key players than most other teams.
The second group we will call the “The Fatalists.” They immediately recounted past injuries to Jean Ratelle, Ulf Nilsson,Brian Leetch, Ryan McDonagh and Mats Zuccarello that stood in the way of postseason success. They are longtime Ranger fans who have lived through numerous debilitating injuries to key players at the worst possible time. For a Fatalist, the injuries to Igor Shesterkin and Krieder were inevitable.
The last group we will call “The I Told You So’s” and they immediately lamented the fact that the Rangers didn’t trade Kreider and reap the benefits of the return he would have brought. Many in this group wanted the team to trade Kreider at the deadline, and disagreed with the big contract and long term he was awarded. They believe that the injury was an example of getting what you ask for, predictable bad luck for a team that made a bad decision.
Be a Realist
We should all be Realists. Injuries happen and every NHL franchise can point to an ill-timed injury that cost their team a potential championship. It just so happens that the Rangers have actually been pretty fortunate this season.
According to the website NHL Injury Viz, the Rangers have lost the fourth fewest number of man-games due to injury in the NHL this season. Here’s the Blueshirt breakdown:
Goalies: 6 games
Defensemen: 33 games
Forwards: 48 games
That’s a total of 87 man-games lost by the Rangers this season. Here are the players who were out the longest:
Libor Hajek (knee) – 16 games
Marc Staal (ankle & misc) – 15 games
Mika Zibanejad (upper body) – 13 games
Micheal Haley (core) – 11 games
Brendan Lemieux (hand) – 10 games
No other players have missed as many as six games. As David Quinn pointed out last night, when Mika Zibanejad missed his 13 games the Rangers went 8-4-1.
Some comparisons
All teams have injuries, but it seems like there have been an inordinate number of injuries to stars this season. The Penguins lost Sidney Crosby for 28 games and Jake Guentzel for 24 games. The Flyers haven’t seen Nolan Patrick play this season and Oskar Lindblom has cancer. Connor McDavid, Mikko Rantanen, Vladimir Tarasenko, Erik Karlsson and Tomas Hertl are just a few who missed significant time. Add Kreider to the list.
The Rangers are in a life and death struggle for a playoff berth with Metropolitan Division rivals Carolina, Columbus and the Islanders. They are neck and neck with Atlantic Division teams Toronto and Florida. How have those teams fared when it comes to injuries?
Carolina Hurricanes: 74 man-games lost
Columbus Blue Jackets: 380 man-games lost
Islanders: 151 man-games lost
Florida: 106 man-games lost
Toronto: 177 man-games lost
The number of man-games lost doesn’t take into account the timing and nature of injuries. While the Hurricanes have lost only 74 man-games, they have lost top defenseman Dougie Hamilton for the rest of the season and goalie James Reimer and defenseman Brett Pesce will be out for a while.
Columbus is missing eight regulars right now and Toronto has lost Jake Muzzin, Ilya Mikheyev and Andreas Johnsson for weeks.
No matter how you look at it, as much as it will hurt to lose Kreider, other teams have suffered as much or more.
It’s not over until it’s over
Every NHL team has to face adversity. The good news for the Rangers is that they performed well without Mika Zibanejad. Igor Shesterkin was out with an ankle injury and now with a broken rib and the team hasn’t missed a beat with Alexandar Georgiev in goal.
Kreider missed one game this season with an upper body injury and the Rangers lost that game to Dallas. He also played two games this week while under the weather and the team won both of those games.
Can they win without Chris Kreider? Absolutely. Will it be more difficult? Of course. And any team with the tandem of Artemi Panarin and Mika Zibanejad has a chance to win very game they play.
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This has been a season of tests for a very young Rangers team and this is just the latest one. Seeing how they respond will tell us a lot about how prepared they are this year for a postseason run.
As for The Fatalists, these injuries are not some kind of joke the hockey gods play on the Rangers and the Blueshirts are not living under some kind of curse. Kreider’s injury was just an unfortunate and unlucky break.
It was as unfortunate as Uf Nilsson’s skate getting caught in a rut while he was hit by Denis Potvin. It was as unlucky as when Jean Ratelle’s ankle was broken by a shot by teammate Dale Rolfe or when Ryan McDonagh’s shot fractured Mats Zuccarello’s skull.
Okay, I will throw the Fatalists a bone and admit that Brian Leetch fracturing his ankle slipping on a patch of ice getting out of a taxi cab in 1993 was some sort of cosmic joke.
A message to the I Told You So’s
If you wanted to trade Chris Kreider at the deadline and are upset that the team didn’t, or if you think the team made a major mistake signing him for seven years, you are entitled to that opinion. However, this was an accident and it’s what happens when a hard disc of frozen rubber hits a human foot at 80-90 miles per hour.
Hindsight is 20-20 and there’s no point in ruing the fact that they kept and signed him. It was a commitment by the New York Rangers to success this year, next year and the year after and while they may regret the deal in five or six years, it is what the team needed right now.
Perhaps the best option is to join a group we didn’t mention, The Optimists. They believe that the Rangers will sneak into the wild card, get Shesterkin and Kreider back for the playoffs and go for a long, fruitful run in the postseason.
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