2019-20 Rangers report card: Brendan Lemieux
Can Brendan Lemieux follow in his father’s skates and make an NHL career as an agitator with a scoring touch?
We continue our series of New York Rangers report cards. We continue our look at the forwards, with BrendanLemieux. We’ll look back at last season and provide some expectations for the coming season.
Brendan Lemieux: Grade C
If Brendan Lemieux turns out even the half NHLer his father was, the New York Rangers will be well off.
Claude Lemieux made an NHL living for over two decades by goading opponents and scoring timely goals. A whack to the back of the legs with the stick. A facewash with a smelly glove. A nasty word or phrase accompanied by his trademark grin. All in a night’s work for the Buckingham, Quebec native, who skated on the right wing for six different NHL teams, most notably the Montreal Canadiens, New Jersey Devils, and Colorado Avalanche.
Lemieux was good at getting the opponents’ best players off their game — particularly in the playoffs.
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He was an integral part of four Stanley Cup championship teams — one apiece with the Canadiens (as a rookie in 1986) and the Avalanche (1996), and two with the Devils (1995 and 2000). For his career, he notched 379 goals and 407 assists for 786 points along with 1,777 penalty minutes in 1,215 regular-season games, plus 80 markers and 78 helpers for 158 points in 234 postseason matches.
The Rangers don’t expect Brendan to be as productive as Claude, but they do believe that with more maturity and experience, he’ll follow in his father’s mold as an agitator with some scoring pop. Brendan must learn to pick his spots and not take selfish penalties in key moments that hurt his own team.
His season
Speaking of selfish penalties that hurt his own team, none was bigger than Lemieux’ elbow to the head of Avalanche forward Joonas Donskoi late in the third period of the Rangers’ 3-2 overtime loss at Colorado on March 11 (the team’s final game before the NHL paused play due to COVID-19).
Trailing by a goal with under three minutes to play, Lemieux unnecessarily targeted Donskoi. Fortunately for Lemieux, he only received two minutes for interference, the Rangers killed the penalty, and Pavel Buchnevich potted the equalizer with 13 seconds remaining to secure at least a point.
Lemieux’s hit-job on Donskoi had nothing to do with the play. Absolutely zilch. And in addition to putting his team in an even tougher spot that night in Colorado, the NHL reviewed the flagrant blow and suspended Lemieux for the first two games of the Rangers’ Qualifying Round series against Carolina last August (swept by the Hurricanes in three).
The two minutes he got for his cheap shot on Donskoi were part of his 111 PIMs last season, the second-most in the NHL behind San Jose Sharks’ forward Evander Kane, who averaged nearly seven more minutes of ice time per game than the Rangers’ pest. Lemieux finished seventh in the league in penalties drawn (32) while taking 18 minors, a team leading difference of 14.
As for his offensive numbers, they may have been limited by a broken thumb (and aftereffects) suffered during a December 27 win over Carolina. That was the Rangers’ 35th game and Lemieux had five goals and eight assists. After missing nearly three weeks and returning on January 19, he posted just one marker and four apples in 24 matches to finish the season with 18 points.
In fairness, he was relegated to mostly fourth-line duties in those two-dozen matches after he had filled in for Chris Kreider when the veteran winger was lost to a hamstring injury and saw time on both the second power-play and penalty-killing units earlier in the season (he scored twice when the Rangers had the man advantage and once while shorthanded).
The numbers
Games: 59
Goals: 6
Assists: 12
Points: 18
PIMs: 111 (2nd in NHL)
Fighting majors: 5 (tied for team lead)
Blocked shots: 52 (3rd among the team’s forwards)
Hits: 164 (most among the team’s forwards)
ATOI: 12:52
Corsi-for: 42.4%
Postseason: Lemieux played in only the third game of the Qualifying Round. He didn’t record a point and had five shots on goal, a hit, and a shot block.
Why the grade?
The numbers don’t lie: Six goals, 18 points, under 13 minutes of ice per night, and a Corsi-for rating of 42% isn’t even pedestrian.
However, he’s shown he can score at the NHL level, having potted 12 goals in 2018-19 in 63 games. That season, he notched nine markers and two helpers in 44 games for the Winnipeg Jets. He was traded to the Rangers as part of a package for Kevin Hayes in February and posted three goals and three assists in 19 contests.
Expectations
The Rangers and Lemieux agreed to a two-year deal worth $1.55 million per season last month.
They need the 24-year-old to continue to goad opponents off their game and contribute more to the scoresheet. They also need him to be more mindful of situations before engaging in hi-jinks with opponents.
The hit on Donskoi isn’t a good look. It wasn’t an accident — and it wasn’t the first time Lemieux delivered drive-by elbows.
In December, he was fined for $2,000 for elbowing Cody Glass, and in November of 2018, while skating for the Winnipeg Jets, he received a two-game ban for a head shot on Vincent Trocheck.
Trash talking is one thing, headhunting is another. And the Rangers can’t afford opponents getting retribution by targeting their skill players.