The New York Rangers had a disappointing outing in Carolina, losing 6-3 to the Hurricanes in a fairly one-sided game. The Blueshirts got within two goals in the third period and made a game of it, but a late power play goal was the back breaker.
Billed as a meeting between the top two teams in the Metropolitan Division, what we did learn was that on this night, the Hurricanes were the much better team. They destroyed a pretty good Boston Bruins team 7-1 on the road on Tuesday, so you could say that the Rangers put up a better fight in an opposition arena.
We’re going to break format a little bit and not do a blow-by-blow description of this game. If you want want to see a recap, look at the video recap, it tells the story. Instead, we’ll focus on some storylines.
Tony DeAngelo’s big game
Anthony DeAngelo knows how to rub it in. He was named first star of the game with a goal and two assists. He played like the Tony DeAngelo we watching in New York two seasons ago and reaffirmed that he is one of the better offensive blueliners in the NHL when he wants to be.
The whole DeAngelo situation will go down as one of the disasters of the Jeff Gorton regime. There is no way that that he should have allowed David Quinn to dump the problem in his lap with no recourse but banishment. It tied his hands and forced him into a buyout.
The fact that the Rangers are paying DeAngelo almost $1.3 million over this season and next to NOT play for them is a travesty. The fact that they got nothing in exchange for one of the dynamic young offensive players in the NHL is absurd. It shouldn’t have happened.
Now, one thing has to be taken into account. DeAngelo sat at home and didn’t play hockey for 50 games. He was facing a crossroad in his career and he took a $3.7 million paycut to sign with Carolina, a deal that drew a lot of criticism in hockey circles. He is playing this season with focus and no distractions. He has revived his career and who knows what would have happened if he had stayed in New York.
We’ll never know what really happened last season to cause that third strike and to be honest, the Rangers blue line doesn’t have a place for him. The shame is that they got nothing for him and instead are eating up valuable cap space with his buyout money. It makes you wonder what the Rangers on the bench were thinking watching him celebrate that goal in front of them.
The Hurricanes
There’s no denying that the Hurricanes are an excellent hockey team. They will be contending for for the top spot in the Metropolitan Division and are a lock for the playoffs. But, since making the Eastern Conference Finals in 2019, they lost in the first round in 2020 and in the second round in 2021. Prior to that, they had missed the playoffs for nine straight seasons.
In many ways, the Rangers are paralleling the Hurricanes. Carolina fired their GM Ron Francis in April 2018, installed Don Waddell as GM and Ron Brind’Amour as coach. The Rangers fired Jeff Gorton and David Quinn in May 2021, replacing them with Chris Drury and Gerard Gallant.
The Rangers are poised to make the next step into the playoffs as the Hurricanes were in 2019. Meanwhile, the Hurricanes are poised to become a disappointment if they do not make at least to the Stanley Cup Finals. Don’t forget, they were two points away from winning the President’s Trophy last season.
The Hurricanes are playing the way they are expected to play. This is their prime and inevitably, they will become a victim of salary cap realities and they won’t be the darlings of the NHL anymore.
The realities
Ranger fans are fickle. We become too demanding and our expectations exceed the possibilities. Honestly, did anyone think that after the first half of the season, the New York Rangers would have the fourth most points in the NHL? Did anyone think that the New York Rangers would have the most road wins of any NHL team? Did anyone think that the New York Rangers would have the third best defense in the NHL?
Sure, they lost to Carolina by a 6-3 score. But it was on the road with their back-up goalie in net. And with 13 minutes left in the game it was a two-goal game and the Rangers were pushing hard. Artemi Panarin elevates the puck in the second period and Braden Schneider doesn’t hit the post in the third period and it is a different game.
Okay, we get it. Carolina is a better team. They are relentless on the forecheck, quick with passes and shots and shut down on defense. At times they made the Rangers look helpless, but again, it was a two goal game, it was a GAME with seven minutes left. Sure, they took their foot off the gas, but it was a game.
As Mika Zibanejad said of the Hurricanes after the game, “It was the best team we’ve played against, really, taking advantage of the things we did wrong, our mistakes. It’s a good learning lesson for us, we’ll move on.”
One thing about this Ranger team is that they learn from their losses. They are 9-3-2 after losses and that’s a good sign.
Gerard Gallant was honest in his assessment of the Rangers’ defense. “They put pressure one you. You try to make the cute little plays to your D to D partner when there are guys right on you, it’s not going to work. Sometimes you have to win those one-one-one battles on the boards and get it over the blue line. You can’t be satisfied making the clean pass every time and that’s the way they play.”
Games like this highlight the flaws with the Rangers roster. For the most part, they have been able to overcome those flaws. Tonight they couldn’t. They will learn from it.
Depth
One of the flaws of this team is depth. Julien Gauthier got a seat on the bench as Gallant restored Dryden Hunt to the lineup and kept Greg McKegg in. The latter move paid off when McKegg scored his first goal of the season on another good shift by the fourth line.
Hunt played right wing with Ryan Strome and Artemi Panarin and that line had awful possession numbers. In 12 minutes of ice time at even strength they were outshot 11-6 and the Hurricanes had 15 scoring chances to only four for the Rangers. The Canes had more high danger chances by an 8-1 margin. Combined, the line’s plus/minus was -6.
This is a huge problem for the Blueshirts. They need even strength scoring from their most dynamic forward and this search for a right winger has been a mystery all season. Those possession numbers should be flipped. Right now, Artemi Panarin is a power play specialist and that is not why he is making $11.6 million a year.
We’ve advocated for Kaapo Kakko to be moved to the Strome line. Although he is not scoring, he is making any line he is on better. Gallant needs to jump start Artemi Panarin and the way to do it is to give him a real right wing. Enough experimentation.
Of course, as we’ve pointed out in the past, Kakko has helped the Zibanejad line since he was moved to it. They will need to find someone to replace him, but the bottom line is that Kakko is a scorer and would benefit from skating with a playmaker like Panarin.
Instead Kakko found himself replace by Ryan Reaves and moved to the fourth line in the third period. Gallant said that it was nothing Kakko did, he ” just wanted to get a big body up there.” Of course, in the 2:22 Kakko played with McKegg and Rooney, they had four shot attempts to only one for the Hurricanes. In the 3:54 Reaves played with Zibanejad and Kreider, they were outshot 3-0, outchanced 3-1 and the Canes had six shot attempts to one for New York. That didn’t work.
Gallant is reluctant to make any changes to a winning lineup, but now is the time to experiment.
The lineup
Some observers questioned the fact that Alexandar Georgiev got the start instead of Igor Shesterkin. He was going to start one of the two back-to-back games, but the expectation was that he would get the “easier” opponent at home on Saturday.
In hindsight, it made sense to start their backup. This was a game that the Rangers had to believe that they were going to have trouble winning. With Georgiev in net, it lowered expectations and if he has played out of his mind and stolen a win, it would have been nothing but good news.
Georgiev didn’t play badly, but was under siege most of the game. Now it will be Shesterkin in net at the Garden against the Coyotes. Before the game Gallant said that this game was like any other and it doesn’t matter where the points come from. With that perspective, it made sense to start Georgiev in a game that was not a “must win” whereas the Coyotes game is a “should win” and Shesterkin gives them a better chance of that.
Gallant rewards good play and that’s why Greg McKegg got the start in place of Julien Gauthier. Since he scored, it’s likely he will be in the lineup again on Saturday. Meanwhile, Morgan Barron sits on the Taxi Squad.