The trials of being a Rangers fan and managing expectations

The coach

There were numerous calls for David Quinn’s head after the opening night loss.  The overwhelming sentiment was that the team was not prepared for the game and that’s on the coaching staff.  To be honest, the loss brought back memories of the Hurricanes series and those were not good ones.

Was it the coach’s fault?  Remember what Quinn said on Friday about overreacting. “It’s a balancing act. We certainly are very alarmed at what happened last night. It was a complete shock to us as a staff.”

If it was a complete shock as Quinn said, that has to be a concern.  It meant that the coaches were as overconfident and unrealistic about that game as the fans and players.  For now, we will chalk it up to the lack of preseason games and the short training camp, but it is still a concern.

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Compound that concern with the moves made with the lineup in the second game.  During training camp here were the top storylines. K’Andre Miller’s ability to play top defensive minutes with Jacob Trouba.  Kaapo Kakko’s new role on the Ryan Strome/Artemi Panarin line.  The chemistry rapidly being developed between Filip Chytil, Julien Gauthier and Alexis Lafrenière.  The desire to keep the Adam Fox/Ryan Lindgren pairing intact. Kreider and Buchnevich on the penalty kill.

How  quickly things changed. Lindgren with Trouba.  Johnson with Fox.  Lafrenière moved up.  Kakko moved down.  All moves that would have been made if there had been preseason games, but the need to make them was undetected in the training camp scrimmages. The only storyline that remains intact is the penalty killing of Kreider and Buchnevich.

Quinn made a point of saying that benching DeAngelo and Kevin Rooney’s injury were responsible for all of the lineup shuffling.  When it comes to the forwards, the Rooney injury really didn’t force the moves, it was the decision to move Lafrenière to the second line that caused the changes. .

The benching did impact the defense, but there was no way that Miller was going to play with Trouba again and Lindgren was the only answer.  Now, with Brendan Smith having played a rock solid game, how is Quinn going to get DeAngelo back into the lineup? At $4.8 million a year, he has to play, but now we may have to wait until Smith makes the inevitable bonehead play.