Three improvements Rangers must make when hockey resumes

The New York Rangers playoff push may have been halted, but when hockey does return, the Blueshirts must improve three components of their game to become legitimate contenders.

Prior to the outbreak of COVID-19, the Rangers had put together a second-half run that saw them go 14-7-1 and move within two points of a wild card birth. Highlighted over that stretch were three players in particular; Igor Shesterkin, Mika Zibanejad, and Artemi Panarin, who shouldered the brunt of New York’s issues on a nightly basis.

Yes, things were starting to look much more optimistic on Broadway, as the Blueshirts (79 points) had already surpassed their 2018-2019 total of 78 with 12 games remaining. But there were still three glaring weaknesses to the Rangers’ game, that if they did manage to sneak into the final playoff spot, would have been egregiously exposed by the formidable Boston Bruins.

New York is loaded with young talent, who along  with several budding superstars, could position the city that never sleeps for a chance to have a dynasty similar to that of the Chicago Blackhawks or Los Angeles Kings. The ultimate goal is for the Blueshirts to lift the ever-elusive Stanley Cup over their heads, but there are steps that need to be taken once hockey returns in order to get there.

None of this will happen overnight and for the Rangers to be able to go toe to toe with the league’s best, they will have to drastically improve their possession metrics, their penalty kill, and their defensive structure.

Improving Puck Control and Possession

On the surface, the New York Rangers look like a juggernaut offensively, scoring 3.33 goals per game, good for the fifth-best total in the league. That consistency in scoring usually means that you possess the puck the majority of the time, but in the Rangers case, that goal amount can directly be correlated to the team’s high shooting percentage.

As a team, New York scores on 8.89 percent of their 5v5 shots, according to Natural Stat Trick. That is the seventh-highest percentage in the league, an astounding number considering that the Blueshirts are only 13th in scoring chances per 60 (26.53) and 16th in shots per 60 (30.63). In addition, the Rangers have six players who have played at least 50 games with a shooting percentage over 10, and eight players with a shooting percentage over nine.

What we are seeing at MSG this season is a team that is not generating the same opportunities as the top-flight teams in the NHL but capitalizing at a much higher rate. Eventually, that will even out and when it does, the Blueshirts will see their winning ways abandon them.

To correct this, the Rangers must improve their CORSI percentage, a metric that shows whether a team is controlling the puck more than their opponent. A team wants their CF% to be over 50%, but for New York, their CF% is 28th in the league at 46.73%.

The Blueshirts have proven that when given the opportunity to score, they will convert, so now they must start to control the pace of the game, holding the puck and waiting for openings to strike. By doing that, they eliminate the opponent’s chances and improve their own due to their high conversion rate.

If the other team does not have the puck they simply cannot score, and a simple tweak in how the Rangers control the pace of play will not only improve their CORSI but help them improve defensively and win more hockey games.

Stepping Up on the Penalty Kill

Win the special teams battle, win the game is an old hockey mantra which stands true to this day. If you better your opponent both while up and down one man, your odds of winning the game grow significantly higher. With the seventh-ranked powerplay in the league at 22.9%, the New York Rangers positioned themselves well nightly to win that special teams battle.

In the Rangers case, they merely needed to kill just 78% of their penalties to win the special teams war on a nightly basis, but they managed to kill off just 77.4% of their sin bin transactions instead. The gap between seventh on the power play and 23rd on the penalty kill is astronomical and really held the Rangers back from optimizing their high goal totals on the season.

Now, the penalty kill is a hard thing to correct because you are indeed down a man and the whole premise is that you will give up goals. But there are ways to make changes starting with your personnel.

The key to the penalty kill is twofold, first, you cannot let the seam pass get through, and second, you have to have the footspeed to read and react to the numerous situations presented. The seam pass is any pass that moves the puck from one side of the ice through the middle to the other. On a penalty kill, allowing this pass shifts the whole dynamic and forces a unit to go from structured to running around in a split second. If you’d like to see the seam pass in action, watch this video from NHL Now explaining the emergence of the seam pass.

The Rangers lack defensive footspeed, especially in Jacob Trouba, Marc Staal, and Brendan Smith, three big guys who are not known for their elite quickness. That forces the defense to play closer to the men in front, leaving the seams open and exposing the one-timer which so often comes back to bite the Rangers.

If New York wants to win more hockey games, it is no secret that the penalty kill needs to improve, and by swapping personnel and improving structure the Rangers may be able to do just that.