How the New York Rangers are unprepared for the playoffs
The New York Rangers didn’t plan for the postseason and it could hurt them.
When the 2020 NHL Trade Deadline rolled around, the New York Rangers became Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The Dr. Jekyll Rangers decided to roll the dice and go for the playoffs. They signed Chris Kreider to a big multi-year contract. They didn’t trade Jesper Fast or Greg McKegg, both pending unrestricted free agents. Dr. Jekyll believed that the Rangers had a shot at the postseason and went for it.
The Mr. Hyde Rangers then went out and traded Brady Skjei, a top pair defenseman, to the Carolina Hurricanes for a first round draft pick. They did this mostly for salary cap reasons, to free up cap space so they could sign their restricted free agents this summer. While that makes some sense, it’s the next move that they didn’t make that is puzzling. They didn’t do anything to make up for the loss of Skjei by adding some experience to an already young corps of defensemen.
While the depth of the prospect pool at defense is one of the team’s strengths, at this point, they are all prospects. The Rangers’ hopes for the future on the blue line are all prospects in the NCAA, Canadian Juniors or in Europe, not in the AHL. That is an issue they didn’t address.
The Brendan Smith factor
When the Rangers traded Skjei they traded a player who was averaging 20:41 minutes of ice time per game. That was second only to Jacob Trouba, his defense partner who played over 22:30 per game. While Skjei had moments that drove fans to pull out their hair and the coach to occasionally bench him, he still played well enough to remain in the top pair while chipping in with eight goals and 23 points.
Loathe to break up the successful Adam Fox/Ryan Lindgren tandem and with the Anthony DeAngelo/Marc Staal pairing working well, David Quinn was forced to put Brendan Smith on the top pairing.
That’s Brendan Smith, a player whose primary value to the team was his versatility, his ability to play fourth line forward as well as on the blue line killing penalties. That’s Brendan Smith, whose plus/minus mark of -12 was third worst on the team. That’s Brendan Smith who has avoided buy outs and exile to the minor leagues by the skin of his teeth ever since he signed a bloated four-year, $17.4 million contract in 2017.
There’s no breakdown of Smith’s season as a defenseman as opposed to his time at forward, but we did analyze Smith’s impact on Trouba. One impact was that David Quinn cut back on Trouba’s ice time. He led the team in even strength ice time during the regular season, averaging about 18:20 per game. In his nine games without Skjei, Trouba’s average even strength ice time dropped below 18 minutes per game.
In his nine games with Smith as his partner, Trouba led the team in even strength ice time only three times in nine games with Adam Fox usually the team leader. While the Rangers are lucky that they have as skilled a rookie d-man as Fox ready to step in, they are not paying Jacob Trouba $8 million a year to be a second pair defenseman.
Defensive depth
With the Rangers left with Brendan Smith as their only option to replace Skjei, the lack of depth on the blue line was obvious. The team clearly felt that Libor Hajek was not strong enough to be called up, even as a back up. They chose to go with the minimum six defensemen on their roster after the trade deadline.
Even more glaring is the lack of NHL experience in the organization. The only blueliner in the entire New York Rangers organization not on the major league roster who has NHL experience is Libor Hajek with all of 33 games. No other defenseman playing for the Wolf Pack has skated in an NHL game.
Here are the defensemen who played over 20 games this season in Hartford: Nick Ebert, Mason Geertsen, Libor Hajek, Vincent LoVerde, Darren Raddysh, Yegor Rykov, Not exactly household names.
The playoffs
All of this means that the Rangers are poorly equipped to deal with a deep playoff run. The Stanley Cup Playoffs are a war of attrition and a thin defense will be exposed even more if they sustain any injuries.
Let’s not forget that Raphael Diaz, Matt Hunwick, Dylan McIlrath, Nick Holden, Roman Hamrlik, Steve Eminger and Stu Bickel all saw action in the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the Rangers between 2012 and 2017. While none were stars, all except McIlrath were experienced NHL players.
Ranger fans have to pray that Trouba, DeAngelo and Fox avoid injury. The only righthanded shooting replacement in the organization is Darren Raddysh, a 24 year old career minor leaguer. They traded their best right handed option in Joey Keane, swapped to Carolina for Julien Gauthier. While they were dealing from organization strength when they did it, it’s a trade that may come back to haunt them.
Back to Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
In the battle of split personalities, when it comes to the defense it looks like Mr. Hyde won. If Dr Jekyll had been in real control, not only would the Rangers have signed Chris Kreider and kept Fast and McKegg, but they would have gone out and found some defensive depth in case they made the playoffs.
The Devils traded Sami Vatanen to the Hurricanes at the deadline, getting prospect Janne Kuokkanen in the deal. They also took defenseman Fredrik Claesson off the Canes’ hands. As a pending UFA with 155 NHL games under his belt, the Rangers could have made a play for their former d-man as part of the Skjei deal.
Anaheim had two pending UFA’s in veterans Michael Del Zotto and Matt Irwin who could have provided some depth for the Blueshirts. No doubt there were other inexpensive trade possibilities out there.
The problem with the Jekyll and Hyde approach to management is you cannot be both. If you truly believe that you can be a playoff team, you jump into the deep end with both feet. Granted, the Skjei deal makes sense for financial reasons, but it’s a trade that a team bound for the playoffs should not make as it will impact next season as well.
Possible postseason roster. light. Related Story
That’s because unless the Rangers believe that a 20-year old K’Andre Miller is ready to step into a starting role or Libor Hajek is ready to live up to his advance billing or Yegor Rykov has adapted well enough to North America or Tarmo Reuanen is ready to move to over from Liiga, they will be facing a season with Brendan Smith as a top pair defenseman. Dr. Jekyll wouldn’t be happy with that.