Pavel Buchnevich making himself worth keeping?

Coming into the 2021 season, one of the New York Rangers’ top candidates to be traded at the deadline was Pavel Buchnevich.  The reasons were simple.

1. He was in the final year of a two year contract and destined for arbitration eligible RFA status.
2. He was about to be supplanted on the right side of the top six by Kaapo Kakko and Vitali Kravtsvov
3. He had shown flashes of potential, but the enigmatic forward had never developed as much as the team had hoped.
4. He would need to be protected in the expansion draft.

Now, the Rangers have a very tough call to make.  While Buchnevich remains attractive trade bait, he has increased his value substantially.  He leads the team in scoring (thanks to Artemi Panarin’s leave) and his points per game rate of .85 is the best in his career by far.  Scoring prowess aside, perhaps even more dramatic is the fact that he has become the top penalty killing forward on the team. Yes, the best penalty killer on the Rangers.

The penalty kill

The Rangers have developed into one of the top penalty killing team in the NHL this season. They are succeeding at a 85.6% rate, fourth best in the NHL.  That’s a huge improvement over last season when they were 23rd in the NHL at 77.4%.  The year before they were 27th overall at 78.2%.

What’s changed?  Coaching and personnel.  The single biggest factor is the addition of Jacques Martin as defensive coach.  Martin has instilled a new system that pressures the opposition, a much more aggressive strategy than that employed by the Lindy Ruff penalty kill.

Adam Fox and Ryan Lindgren have become the top defense pairing on the penalty kill and have been excellent. The top blueline penalty killers last season were Jacob Trouba and Brady Skjei.   The emergence of Fox and Lindgren has dropped Trouba to the second defense pairing along with K’Andre Miller, an improvement over Marc Staal and Brendan Smith.

Perhaps the biggest change, instituted by Martin, has been the emergence of Pavel Buchnevich as the top penalty killing forward on the Rangers.  It took the new coach to see the potential and then to give him the job.  Consider this.  In his first two seasons under David Quinn, Buchnevich totaled seven seconds in 2018-19 and just over a minute (1:09) on the penalty kill last season  This season, he leads all forwards with 67:49 minutes of shorthanded ice time.  He has replaced Mika Zibanejad as the go-to forward on the penalty kill.

The four forwards with the most ice time on the penalty kill are Buchnevich, Zibanejad, Brett Howden and Kevin Rooney.  Buchnevich has been on ice for the fewest power play goals against,  three goals, despite playing the most ice time.   Compare that to Howden (7 goals), Rooney (6 goals) and Zibanejad (5 goals).

Buchnevich (20) and Zibanejad (19) have allowed fewer high danger scoring chances than Howden (22) and Roonery (23) .  Buchnevich has been on ice for fewer high danger chances converted into goals, only two compared to to three for Zibanejad and Howden and four for Rooney.

Considering the numbers, is it any mystery why the Rangers allowed two power play goals in five attempts by the Flyers on Monday?  They were without Fox and Buchnevich, their best penalty killing defenseman and forward.

The deadline question

And that brings us to the question of the trade deadline and who will go.  There’s a likelihood that the Rangers will be sellers (again) and the candidates are obvious.  Kevin Rooney, Tony Bitetto, Colin Blackwell and even Brendan Smith are the names most often mentioned.  Then you have the young assets like Julien Gauthier, Libor Hajek and Brett Howden, all expansion draft eligible.

But what about Buchnevich?  An obvious choice has become problematic. By developing into a true 200 foot player who is the team’s leading scorer, best penalty killer and a shorthanded offensive threat, he may be a player worth keeping.

One thing to keep your eyes on.  If the Rangers do not trade Buchnevich at the deadline, it may mean that they intend to use him as trade bait after the season or they will keep him and trade another right winger.

If the long rumored Jack Eichel trade is even possible, it will take top flight talent to get him and if Buchnevich is regarded as top six talent, it may mean that either Kakko or Kravtsov are expendable.  The Sabres have lost 12 in a row and just fired their coach and they may finally be ready to move on from their unhappy captain and try something different.

Buchnevich is just entering his prime, turning 26 in a month. After five years in the NHL he has finally turned into the player that they had hoped he would be. When they signed Artemi Panarin and extended Chris Kreider, they accelerated their need to get to contender status.   Are they willing to wait the three years for Kravtsov to mature to a point where he is a difference maker or will they commit to a player who has already gone through the process?

If dealing one of their top young prospects at right wing will get them a first line center and put them in a position to win now, keeping Buchnevich may be the best strategy and his penalty killing  prowess may have tilted the odds in his favor.