New York Rangers: Too good too soon?

The downside of playoff contention

The first issue with embracing playoff contention was displayed at the trade deadline. Instead of trading valuable assets, namely Chris Kreider, they re-signed him.  They also held on to pending free agents Jesper Fast and Greg McKegg.   They did make a concession for the future by trading Brady Skjei for a first round pick to clear cap space.

The Skjei trade was an example of the schizophrenia affecting the rebuild/retool New York Rangers.  Despite the Rangers being a stronger team for a playoff run with Skjei in the lineup they traded him to a playoff rival  in order to clear cap space for the future.

That was just the trade deadline. How about the regular season?  The desire to win and make the playoffs has affected more than just trade deadline decisions.  It affected every lineup that took the ice in all 70 games the Rangers played.

While I am not going to get too deep into the business of backseat coaching, some of the decisions made by the coaching staff have clearly been driven by competitive as opposed to developmental factors.  Playing Jesper Fast on the same line as Artemi Panarin and Ryan Strome instead of young players like Kaapo Kakko or the newly acquired Julien Gauthier was one example.

The allocation of ice time is another indication with Panarin and Zibanejad getting much more ice time than the young players.  It’s only on defense that Quinn has relied on his young players and given them the ability to learn on the job.

That said, if Adam Fox and Ryan Lindgren had struggled,  they wouldn’t be playing instead of Marc taal and Brendan Smith.  Even the use of Brendan Smith as the replacement for Brady Skjei is driven by the playoff run as opposed to experimenting with Tony DeAngelo on the opposite side or promoting Libor Hajek.