Christmas countdown wish #2: No injuries

With Christmas just days away, we are going to do a countdown of gifts we’d like the New York Rangers to get this holiday season.  We’d be happy to get these gifts from Santa Claus, but it’s better to ask the hockey gods.   We started our list by asking for the NHL to opt out of the Olympics.   You can see that one by clicking here.  It’s not often you get your Christmas wish granted in less than 24 hours, but in this case it happened.  We are off to a good start.

Every day for the next four days, we will unveil another  gift we like to see the New York Rangers receive as this season continues. Second on our list?  An injury free season.

This is a big ask, but it is vital to the success of the this Rangers team.  Let’s be honest, the biggest issue facing the team is the lack of depth, especially at forward.  They’ve already lost Sammy Blais for the rest of the season and we’ve seen the relative chaos among the forwards that has resulted.

Sure, we like Dryden Hunt and Barclay Goodrow, but there is no way that anyone envisioned either of them playing regularly on the top two lines.  We’re sure that Gerard Gallant and Chris Drury are losing sleep over the possibility of a lengthy injury to Artemi Panarin, Mika Zibanejad, Chris Kreider, Ryan Strome or Kaapo Kakko.

This season

The Rangers have been very lucky this season when it comes to injuries. Not including COVID, the Rangers have lost only 49 man-games to injury or illness. Only the Minnesota Wild (35), Calgary Flames (29) and Winnipeg Jets (25) have lost fewer man-games to injury. 15 of the Rangers’ 49 games belong to Sammy Blais so aside from Blais, the Rangers have lost only 24 man-games this season.

Compare that to the Vegas Golden Knights who have lost 163 man-games. If you include the loss of Shea Weber, the Montreal Canadiens have lost 170 games to injury.  Florida has had players miss 158 games. 15 NHL teams have lost over 100 man-games so far this season.  And that doesn’t include COVID.

That’s where depth matters.  Florida and Vegas were able to stay near the top of the NHL because of their depth while the Canadiens plummeted to the bottom.  True, losing Carey Price the entire season so far hasn’t helped either.

For the Rangers, losing Igor Shesterkin could have been a disaster, but Alexandar Georgiev has stepped up and has been outstanding.

Defensive depth

The Rangers have one area where there is organizational depth and that is on defense.  The team has no fewer than five defensemen ready to step up from Hartford if needed.  They include Zac Jones, Brandon Schneider, Anthony Bitetto, Tarmo Reunanen and Matthew Robertson while they have Jarred Tinordi and Libor Hajek on the big league roster.

The one loss on defense that would devastate the team would be the loss of Adam Fox.  He is the one player on the team who can be described as irreplaceable, even more than Artemi Panarin.  He’s missed only one game in his career due to injury and we have to keep our fingers crossed.

Looking ahead

Gerard Gallant said that if the Rangers had been able to play the Canadiens on Wednesday, both Artemi Panarin and Igor Shesterkin would have been available.   That’s good news.  Injuries happen and are inevitable and how a team responds to injuries is a good test of character.

When it comes to the Blueshirts, the biggest challenge the team could face over the next 52 games would be a rash of injuries.   So, we implore the hockey gods to look down on the New York Rangers and spare them any serious injuries the rest of the season.

Next up, a wish that can only be granted by Chris Drury and the Rangers’ brain trust.  It could be influenced tremendously by the injury issues we talked about in this post.