Some new respect for the Rangers in the latest power rankings

Are the New York Rangers getting any love in the latest power rankings?  With a 17-4-3 record only three teams have more points than their 37.   Check out the teams with winning percentages north of .700.

1. New York Rangers  .771
2. Florida Panthers  .760
3. Minnesota Wild  .740
4. Washington Capitals  .731
5. Carolina Hurricanes   .729
6. Tampa Bay Lightning   .720
7. Toronto Maple Leafs  .704

Yes, the Blueshirts have the best winning percentage in the entire league.  So how did they do in the power rankings this week?

ESPN  (Dec. 8) :  6th overall (behind Florida, Toronto, Calgary, Washington and Carolina)

ESPN is the new home for the NHL, but they need to bone up on pro hockey just a bit. Their newest rankings give the Rangers some love, but they are still ranked as the sixth best team in the league up from 10th a week ago.  For some reason, the ESPN panel is ignoring the team’s overall play and are focusing on what they call one of the team’s biggest surprises, the lack of scoring production from the Chytil-Lafrenière-Gauthier trio.

Citing their eight goal total, here’s what they say:  “There’s an element of surprise in how the Rangers’ young offensive stars have struggled to score this season.” But then they call Igor Shesterkin’s play a “real shock” saying that when it came to him,  that their panel of experts were “blown away as New York’s best player.”

Our take – The “Kid Line” has only been together for 12 games this season, a fact that they don’t take into account.  In their 92 minutes together it’s true that they have scored only two goals as a line, but they have had 100 shot attempts.  It’s more a lack of finishing than a struggle offensively  If the team wasn’t winning, that inability to finish would be glaring, but they are fulfilling a vital role on this team. The goals will come.

While Shesterkin’s play has been superlative, to call it a “shock” is absurd.  Sure, he has had a small sample size, but he has already his ability to steal games a fact the Rangers realized when they gave him the big contract.

The Hockey News (Dec. 8):  2nd overall (behind Minnesota)

The Hockey News has jumped on the Rangers and Wild bandwagon, but ranked Minnesota just ahead of New York today.   With both teams riding seven game winning streaks, they justified ranking the Wild ahead of the Rangers because of the difficulty of competition. While the Rangers played the Blackhawks, Islanders, Sabres and Flyers, the Wild had wins over Tampa, Edmonton and Toronto. Fair enough.

The folks at the Hockey News had a criteria that their peers at The Athletic should pay attention to (see below).  They say “Screw the analytics; the Rangers are fun to watch, and let’s see where this can go.”

Our take – We second that motion and while we’d love to see the Blueshirts on top, the second overall ranking does makes some sense. That said, the Rangers have the same number of points as the Wild in one less game and they have played two fewer home games.

NBC Sports (Dec. 7):  2nd overall (behind Florida)

NBC might have lost the rights to the NHL, but they still know their stuff.  In ranking posted before last night’s win over the Blackhawks, the Rangers jumped from ninth to second overall.  In accounting for the jump, they cite the fact that the Rangers have lost only once this month and it was a close 2-1 defeat by Toronto, one of the hottest teams in hockey.

They actually pose the question of whether the Rangers are the best team in hockey.  Their answer?  “Not sure of that. But they have superstars in the right places to carry them pretty far.”

Our take – All we can say is, finally.  NBC has realized that the Rangers are an elite team in this league with all of the right pieces of the puzzle to go far.   It took long enough.

CBS Sports (Dec. 6):  3rd overall (behind Tampa and Minnesota)

When it comes to hockey, CBS is not the first destination for fans, but in their rankings posted on Sunday, they jumped the Rangers from seventh overall to third.

CBS called the Rangers “red hot right now” but also cited the injury to Igor Shesterkin as a major concern.  They call him the “leading candidate for the Vezina Trophy right now. ”   With two straight wins with Georgiev in net, you have to wonder if they regret not giving the Rangers the top spot.

Our take – It’s a little strange that they put Tampa on top, but give them credit for recognizing that the Rangers and Wild are two of the best this year.   Like everyone else, they have bought into the Shesterkin story line as the reason the Rangers are so good.  The last two games have to give them reason to reevaluate the Blueshirts’ success as more than superlative goaltending.

The Score  (Dec. 6): 2nd overall (behind Florida)

The Score move the Rangers from eighth to second in the rankings while highlighting each NHL team’s most improved player.   Who did they pick?  Chris Kreider.  That’s a choice that is tough to argue with.  Kreider is on a pace to score 58 goals and while it’s doubtful he can keep it up, he is going to have his best season in the NHL.

Our take – How can we dispute a second overall ranking? At the time of the rankings, the Panthers had one more win than New York so that accounts for their top position.  Since then the Rangers havewon once and Florida lost in overtime.

Older rankings

NHL.com (Dec. 2):   8th overall (behind Florida, Carolina, Washington, Edmonton, Toronto, Tampa and Calgary)

Okay, these rankings by 14 NHL.com staff are almost a week old and we will wait to see how they rank the Blueshirts next, time but even eighth seems a little low.  Since then, they have won three in a row and passed practically every team in the league.  They cite Ryan Strome’s point streak and of course, Igor Shesterkin, in making their choice.

Our take – What a difference a week could make. At the time of the rankings the Rangers had the same or fewer points than six of the seven teams ranked ahead of them. Now they have games in hand on the three teams with more points and let’s not forget that points percentage.  If they are not in the top three in the next NHL.com rankings, they need to watch some Ranger games.

The Athletic – subscription required (Dec. 3):   9th overall (behind Toronto, Florida, Washington, Calgary, Minnesota, Tampa, Edmonton and Carolina)

These rankings came before the last three games, but the Athletic ranked the Blueshirts the lowest (12th) last week, even worse that ESPN’s 10th place.   Why????  From their comments, it looks like they just don’t believe that the Rangers are that good. They did move them up from 12th to ninth.  Thanks a lot.

They cite as a positive that over the last seven games “they have the highest expected goals rate in the league at 62 percent. Pair that with Igor Shesterkin and this team can really cook.”  Okay, that’s nice to say, but then comes this. “The problem is… so can so many other teams this season. Maybe the Rangers deserve to be higher, but it’s hard to justify with so many teams playing such good hockey right now.”

They do say that the team is “trending upward” so that should be reflected in their next rankings.

Our take –  The folks at The Athletic worship at the altar of advanced analytics, something that we can respect, but they also need to use the good old eye test.  This team has some intangibles that cannot be accounted for by advanced stats.