DeAngelo news dominates as the Rangers prepare for the Penguins
On a normal day, it would be time to look ahead to tonight’s big rematch with the Pittsburgh Penguins. With the New York Rangers reeling and in last place in the East Division, this is yet another “must win” game, not necessarily for the standings, but for the team’s fragile psyche.
Instead, all of the attention is on Tony DeAngelo, his altercation with Alexandar Georgiev and speculation about his future. Let’s get DeAngelo out of the way.
The DeAngelo news
Nothing new has come over the transom since last night except for a report from Larry Brooks of the New York Post that it was rookie K’Andre Miller who broke up the altercation between DeAngelo and Georgiev.
Post has learned that it was K'Andre Miller who broke up the tussle in runway leading to room. https://t.co/IBAsvFsJ9U
— Larry Brooks (@NYP_Brooksie) February 1, 2021
There’s still no real news about the specifics of the altercation, what else DeAngelo had done to prompt the team to waive him and what his immediate future holds. The good news is we can expect to get some more information from the team this afternoon. David Quinn is expected to address the media around 530pm and he may be joined by Jeff Gorton and/or John Davidson.
What we do know is that DeAngelo cleared waivers and will be replaced in the lineup by Tony Bitetto. Georgiev missed the practice yesterday for “maintenance.” Whether that means physical or mental health, we don’t know.
DeAngelo did not skate yesterday, but Quinn said that was because of the waivers situation in case a team put in a claim.
Vince Mercogliano of USA Today reported that Miller reached out to DeAngelo yesterday, an indication that there was no longstanding ill will between the two.
Larry is reporting that it was K'Andre Miller who broke up the DeAngelo-Georgiev altercation.
— Vince Z. Mercogliano (@vzmercogliano) February 1, 2021
FWIW, a well-placed source told me that K'Andre actually made the gesture of reaching out to Tony via text yesterday. All indications are there were no overt issues between the two #NYR https://t.co/yzjYxzEp7S
There are a lot of stories out there with some denied outright and others getting no response.
Related Story. What we know & don't know about the DeAngelo situation. light
We did hear from Mika Zibanejad and Jacob Trouba after practice yesterday and when asked about DeAngelo, they were noncommittal except to express regret about their teammate’s situation.
Back to hockey
The Rangers will be going for their first win in four games against the Penguins tonight. Considering that before the season the Penguins were deemed to be one of the teams that the Rangers had a chance of passing in the final standings, the prospect of going winless in half of their games against them is really bad news.
The Rangers have shown a disturbing inability to hold onto leads, blowing leads in five straight games. They have actually gone into the third period with a lead in five of their eight games this season. How many have they won in regulation? One. In the NHL, if you go into the third period with a lead, the odds are that you will win. The Rangers are defying those odds.
After Saturday’s game, an irate Chris Kreider said that the Rangers play an East-West game and need to play a North-South game. He should take his own advice though Sunday he played more like that than in any other game this season.
The fact is the Rangers declared that they wanted to be harder to play against this season and they have gone in the opposite direction. Against a decimated Penguins defense, they did nothing to put pressure on them. Instead of dump and chase, it was dump and retreat.
Who is at fault? Clearly the players have not gotten the message of being harder to play against from their coaching staff. It points to a lack of leadership on the bench and behind it. If they don’t turn this around soon, it will be a long short season and the key date looking forward will be April 12, the trade deadline.
About the Rangers
The injury bug is starting to have an impact. Though Jack Johnson’s groin injury is seen as a positive, Colin Blackwell joined Filip Chytil on the disabled list with an upper body injury. Blackwell will miss 7-10 days, an absence that will hurt as Blackwell had been one of the few players on the team who was willing to play that north-south style.
In practice Sunday, with Blackwell out, Kaapo Kakko was moved to the second line with Strome and Panarin. His place on the third line was taken by Julien Gauthier who has been scratched the last five games. The third line will be Brendan Lemieux, Kevin Rooney and Phil Di Giuseppe. The first line remained intact.
On defense, Tony Bitetto makes his Ranger debut in place of DeAngelo. He will partner with Brendan Smith who had a dreadful game against the Pens and was benched most of the third period.
The brightest spot on the team continues to be K’Andre Miller who had two assists in the last game and continues to play older than his years and experience. He has played over 21 minutes the last two games, despite getting virtually no power play time. He has been killing penalties and assisted on Kevin Rooney’s shorthanded goal on Saturday.
Miller’s strong play has helped Jacob Trouba who is in his best stretch as a Ranger. If there is any good news, it’s that the team has apparently found a partner for Trouba and this pairing could last for years.
For the rest of the team, it’s the same old story. Artemi Panarin is taking on too much and forcing play. He still leads the team in scoring. Mika Zibanejad has continued to struggle, but for a few breaks, he could have more than one goal and two points.
With the injuries to Chytil and Blackwell, Quinn will be forced to play with what he has and that could mean a reduction in the shuffling of the line combinations.
Last season the Rangers went 11-4 in the month of February with those 11 wins a team record for the month. They will be hard pressed to equal that record this season, considering they have 13 games scheduled for this February.
How the team responds to this turmoil and the loss on Saturday will be the story line tonight.
About the Penguins
There should be no lineup changes for the Penguins except on defense with Kris Letang now out with an undisclosed injury. The Pens have now used 11 different blueliners this season, the most in the entire NHL.
Of the six defensemen to play tonight, before this season they had played a total of 193 games with Pittsburgh, with 137 of them belonging to Chad Ruhwedel.
The Penguins have shown remarkable resilience this season, They are the best in the NHL when trailing after two periods with three wins and no losses. Their five games won when entering the third period tied or trailing is best in the league as well.
Their 21 even strength goals total is eighth best in the NHL. The Penguins have been outscored 27-34 this season and are allowing a 3.78 goals per game, third worst in the NHL. If you take out their first two losses of the season when they gave up 11 goals tp the Capitals, they have improved their average to 3.28 goals per game.
This season 0-1-2
Three games versus the Penguins, three losses and two points.
January 22 – Penguins 4, Rangers 3 (Shootout)
The Rangers blew a 3-1 second period lead on two Penguins goals that were the epitome of bad luck. The Rangers had scored three goals in three minutes in the second period. The Pens comeback started when Ryan Lindgren accidentally pushed the puck into the net under Igor Shesterkin. On the tying goal, it was a wild shot that bounced off the boards right to Teddy Blueger who had an open net. The Pens won the skills competition on Kris Letang’s goal.
January 24 – Penguins 3, Rangers 2
Another blown lead and another loss. Shesterkin had to bear some of the responsibility as he gave up an awful bad angle goal to Jared McCann. The Rangers blew a point in this game when Jake Guentzel scored the game winner with just 1:31 left in the game.
January 30 – Penguins 5, Rangers 4 (Overtime)
Another blown lead in the third period led to an overtime goal by Sidney Crosby. Georgiev had an ordinary outing, but the result was overshadowed by the drama surrounding Tony DeAngelo.
3 keys to winning
- A good game from Shesterkin – The Rangers desperately need one of their goalies to steal a game. Even an above average performance would be step forward. Shesterkin is coming off his best outing of the season in his overtime win over the Sabres and he needs to build on that. Riding a hot goalie would be a sure way to right the ship.
- Hold the lead – Is there anything else to say? The positive news is the Rangers have been getting ahead in most of their games. The negative is that they cannot hold leads. They need to get ahead and stay the course. Blown leads are unacceptable. The Penguins are deadly in extra time so no ties please.
- Win the special teams battle – This was a key in the last game and they did it, scoring once on the power play and shutting down the Pens power play while adding a shorthanded goal. It should have been enough and they need to do it again.
About the game
Puck drop is 7pm and the game will be televised on the MSGPlus The radiocast is on WEPN 1050 AM.
Join the live thread during the game here at Blue Line Station. The conversation will go live just before gametime and it will be your chance to talk to your fellow Ranger fans about your favorite team. With all of the stuff going on with the team, there is a lot to talk about.
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