State of the Rangers rebuild: Report card #1

Stick with it

Even with improved overall play on the ice, the New York Rangers find themselves in much the same hole they were in last season. The issue this season is that they have less time to spend climbing out. With only 56 games on the schedule the team needs to start trending in the right direction, but how?

As clichéd as it may be, the team will get better by sticking with it. Their current game plan is effective, but has been hampered by uneven effort and poorly timed inefficiencies. As noted earlier, the goaltending has been spotty and was in part responsible for two of the teams losses. And while the depth production has kept the team in each game of the current four game slide, the team needs its top players to play like top players.

The good news is that there is no reason to believe that they won’t. Panarin’s production to start this season and last are nearly identical. Zibanejad’s production, after scoring eight points in the first two games fell off to three points over the next seven. DeAngelo had only two points in his first six games. Which is only to point out that a slow start did not impede on these players’ production heights last season and should not be taken as an ill omen this year.

Alexandar Georgiev had a sub .900 save percentage in four of his first 10 starts last season. Yet he earned a new contract over the summer with steady play down as the season progressed and several downright dominant stretches. And while Igor Shesterkin has a very small NHL resume, it is an impressive one and his excellence in the KHL should give some solace that he will rebound.

This 2020-21 New York Rangers are a young team that was always going to need time to sort itself out. During a Rangers post game show, Steve Valiquette noted that the team would probably require 10 games to show who they really are as a team. He may be right, but there just isn’t enough time to squander any more points. We can look at these first six games as essentially the Rangers preseason exhibition games, but if so, the “real” Rangers season must start Thursday night.