New York Rangers defenseman Libor Hajek can get a head start on his teammates by playing in the Czech Republic
Hockey in the Czech Republic has been ravaged by the COVID-19 pandemic. All games in the Tipsport ELH were suspended from October 13 through November 6 by order of the Czech government. As a result, New York Rangers defenseman Libor Hajek was sidelined as well.
The initial report was that Hajek would be playing for Olomouc after some speculation that he would be joining his former team, Kometa Brno. With the suspension of play, it was all in limbo and just this week, it was announced that he would be joining Kometa Brno (Brno Comets).
He played in his first game on Friday and notched two assists in 17 minutes of ice time in the Comets’ 3-2 win over Mladá Boleslav. For Hajek, this is a golden opportunity for him to get a head start on his fellow Rangers defenders.
He will be going to training camp competing for the role of Jacob Trouba‘s partner on the first defense pairing. His competition will be practically every defenseman in camp with the Rangers willing to experiment with defenders like Tony DeAngelo and Adam Fox playing the opposite side along with left-shot defenders like veterans Brendan Smith and Tony Bitetto and rookies K’Andre Miller, Tarmo Reunaen and possibly Yegor Rykov.
While Trouba played the most minutes with Brady Skjei, he also played roughly the same minutes with Smith and Hajek. Smith and Trouba played 235 minutes together at even strength. The pair was on ice for 13 goals against versus five goals for and they had a Corsi For rating of 44.52%.
Hajek and Trouba played 243 minutes at even strength, on ice for both ten goals for and ten goals against and a Corsi rating of 38.88%.
Interestingly, Trouba had his best possession numbers at even strength when he played with Fox and DeAngelo, but in a much smaller sample size.
Hajek’s troubled season
Expectations were high for Hajek last season, based solely on his reputation as the players the Rangers wanted most in the McDonagh trade with Tampa and his brief five game tryout with the Rangers in 2018-19.
He played most in the early part of the season with Trouba and DeAngelo and those combinations didn’t work well. He didn’t contribute much offensively, with no goals and five assists. When he suffered a mid-season knee injury he was sent to Hartford to rehab and never came back, even after the Brady Skjei trade left the team with only six healthy defensemen.
He did make the expanded roster for the Stanley Cup Qualifier, but didn’t see any action in the three game sweep. It’s worth noting that in the entire Rangers organization, other than the starting six, he was the only Rangers blueliner with any NHL experience.
In Hartford he was not great. He scored no goals and had five assists in 58 games and his plus/minus was an abysmal -26.
A new start in the Czech Republic
Hajek went home to the Czech Republic when the Rangers were eliminated and he has been working out in his hometown of Brno with conditioning coach Radim Polášek. When he was able to work out his contract with the Comets, he had five training sessions with them before making his debut on Friday.
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Hajek spoke about his experiences in an interview on a Czech hockey website. He said that he will be waiting to hear from the Rangers and will return to North America when the NHL is ready to resume play. He did speak about Filip Chytil who has spent the off-season in Prague, but is not playing in the Tipsport ELH. Hajek said that Chytil knows he has a job on the Rangers so he is preparing for the NHL season.
The good news for Hajek is that the Comets are in tenth place in the 14 team league and can use Hajek’s help. He started his career playing for the Comets’ junior team before moving to North America to play for the Saskatoon Blades of the WHL so this is a return of sorts.
Due to the pandemic, the Comets have a full schedule of games. They play six more games in November and have a slate of 12 games in December. The only question is when NHL training camps will open. Right now, they are still on track for a January 1 start to the season, meaning that camps should open in mid-December. At any rate, Hajek will get at least ten games of top level competition before he has to head west.
This has to be a crucial season for the 22-year-old in his Rangers career. If he can make the team as a top pair defenseman, he will present the Rangers with a problem when it comes to the expansion draft. The Blueshirts will only be able to protect three defensemen and going into this season the three appeared to be Trouba, DeAngelo and Ryan Lindgren. A revival by Hajek will make it a very complicated situation.
Just another story line of many in what promises to be a very interesting season for the Rangers.