With the benefit of hindsight, 7 things that went wrong for the Rangers
By Steve Paulus
#3 Matching lines
When David Quinn paired Zibanejad and Panarin it robbed the team of their unstoppable depth at forward. The pairing made even less sense in the third game when the Zibanejad line (with Panarin) was tasked with checking the top Carolina line of Sebastian Aho, Andrei Svechnikov and Teuvo Teravainen.
With the Rangers the home team, Quinn was able to send the Zibanejad line out to counter the Aho line, but in doing so, he further reduced the offensive potential for that line. With Fast sidelined, Zibanejad was team’s best defensive forward so having him check the Aho line was smart, but not if he had Panarin on his left side.
In Game Three alone, with two goals and one assist, Sebastian Aho almost exceeded the total output of Panarin and Zibanejad in four games (two goals, two assists). When Zibanejad and Panarin were matched up against Aho, it took away the greatest strength of the Rangers’ offense.