Lafrenière to the top six, Kakko moved down

The New York Rangers are making some lineup changes for the second game of the season

We called the New York Rangers a work in progress and they clearly are.  Without any preseason games to see how the new lines would work, it took all of one game for David Quinn to start moving players around.  In the biggest move, Alexis Lafrenière looks like he will be moved to the right side with Artemi Panarin and Ryan Strome and Kaapo Kakko will be on a newly reconfigured third line with Filip Chytil and Phil Di Giuseppe. That didn’t take long.

In other lineup news, Alexandar Georgiev will get the start, something that Quinn hinted at last night and Kevin Rooney is listed as day-to-day after the head shot he took in a collision with Ross Johnston.

Moving Kakko to the third line pushes Julien Gauthier to the fourth line with Brett Howden and Brendan Lemieux.  Vince Mercogliano of lohud.com tweeted out the news of the lineup changes.

There is no word on the defense pairings though it appears that Tony DeAngelo is in trouble for taking his Unsportsmanlike Conduct penalty after a marginal hooking call one minute into the third period.  Down 4-0, taking a double minor at the start of the third period made the Rangers’ slim odds of rebounding practically impossible.

The big question is whether K’Andre Miller will remain partnered with Jacob Trouba.  if DeAngelo is benched, he will be replaced by Brendan Smith unless Quinn goes the taxi squad route and promotes Tony Bitetto, Libor Hajek or Matthew Robertson.  Rick Carpiniello tweeted  that DeAngelo was relegated to the taxi squad in practice.

Why the Lafrenière move?

There was no doubt that Alexis Lafrenière was one of the more dynamic players on the team.  He drove to the net and actually showed a lot more than his new linemate, Ryan Strome. Quinn was clearly impressed with his game and that showed in how he was used.   He played 15:21 including 1:36 on the power play and 2:10 on the penalty kill.

The irony is that moving the rookie to the right wing is something the Rangers had maintained that they would not do throughout the off-season and during training camp.  If anyone was going to be shifted to the right side it was going to be Chris Kreider, but it’s obvious that the coach doesn’t want to upset the chemistry of the Zibanejad line, the only trio on the team that has been undisturbed.

The Kakko conundrum

Quinn’s demotion of Kakko to the third line after only one game is bound to reinforce the belief of some that the coach is not enamored of the young Finn.   Kakko played 11:25 including 58 seconds on the power play.  He had two shots on goal and his plus/minus was -1, just like Lafrenière.

Quinn told Mercogliano that the demotion was not a message just to Kakko. “It’s not just a message to Kakko – it’s a message to everybody… If someone plays better than you, they should get a better opportunity.”

The Quinn naysayers will tell you that this is not the way to build a player’s confidence…again.   The Kakko naysayers will tell you that he didn’t show enough…again.

The bottom line is there were probably 16 Rangers who didn’t show enough last night, but Kakko is the coach’s only option.  Quinn won’t be demoting Kreider, Strome, Buchnevich or Panarin to make room for Lafrenière even if some of they deserve it.

The facts

The truth of the matter is that David Quinn needed to make some moves.  You can blame the performance on the lack of preseason games, the newness of the players and lines, and the long hiatus from hockey, but it is disturbing that after they were down 2-0, that they didn’t show more fight.  It truly was a flashback to the Stanley Cup Qualifier when they went down meekly to the Hurricanes.  They did the same against the Islanders.

What is inexplicable is that the coach is constantly talking about being hard to play against.  It has been his mantra during the off-season and in training camp.  Why the Rangers can’t do it is the question that needs to be answered first by the players and if they don’t, then by Jeff Gorton and John Davidson.

It’s only one game,but it was an incredibly bad game.  It will make Saturday’s rematch against the Islanders a must-watch game to see how they respond.   It’s also easy to say that the game against the Devils on Tuesday may be even more important.  New Jersey, predicted by everyone to finish last, took the Bruins to a shootout before losing, coming back in the third period to do it.  If they show more fight and desire than the Rangers on Tuesday night, look out.

Lundqvist surgery

The good news is that Henrik Lundqvist underwent his surgery and all reportedly went well.

I’m sure we all extend our best wishes to him as he recovers.