3 Rangers who need to step it up in Round 2
There’s three players that will need to elevate their respective games if the New York Rangers are to get past the Carolina Hurricanes in Round Two and advance to the Eastern Conference Finals.
After beating the Pittsburgh Penguins in seven games in Round One, with Artemi Panarin scoring the winner in Overtime, the Blueshirts will now look to elevate their game in an attempt to reach the Eastern Conference Final for the first time since 2014-15, when they lost to the Tampa Bay Lightning in seven games.
It will be this team’s biggest test of the entire year given that the Hurricanes are an absolute wagon and they are very much built to win right now. Boasting good goaltending, a number of studs on the backend, a boatload of elite offensive weapons and toughness up and down the lineup, the Canes have the pieces to win the Stanley Cup this year and they also had the Rangers’ number during the regular-season.
However, New York is hardly short of talent and, as was proven throughout Round One, this team refuses to quit and they won’t be an easy out, no matter how good the opposition are. They’ve got the goaltending, they have the firepower and they have difference makers, so this series really does have all the ingredients to be a classic.
The good news for Rangers fans too is that there were certain players who didn’t have the best series against Pittsburgh and, if they can step it up in the Second Round, then that could give this team a significant advantage. So, with that being said, let’s take a look at three Blueshirts who need to do a lot more against the Canes…
1. Artemi Panarin
Much of the narrative around Panarin heading into Round Two will be his heroics in Game Seven against the Penguins when he scored the game-winner in Overtime. The Stanley Cup Playoffs are littered with Game Seven heroes, and the stud forward has now joined that prestigious list.
However, Panarin’s ultimate clutch goal was in some ways just putting lipstick on a pig in regards to his overall performance in Round One – it wasn’t great.
He recorded seven points (three goals, four assists) in seven games but was absent for large chunks of games, his playmaking ability just wasn’t there, he suffered bad puck luck, he was caught in too many neutral zone battles and, perhaps most worrying was the 18 giveaways he had throughout the series.
To put it simply; Panarin did not deliver the type of performances we expect to see from him in the postseason, but he got away with it thanks to some elite goaltending from Igor Shesterkin, the kids making a real statement in their first trip to the playoffs and Mika Zibanejad and Chris Kreider coming up clutch in the final couple of games.
However, if the Rangers are to survive a war of attrition against a Hurricanes team that arguably has as much firepower as they do, they will need Panarin to be elite Panarin and actually make a significant impact on each game with both his ability to shoot the puck and his ability to be able to create something out of nothing. With how crucial special teams are in the postseason too, the winger will need to be a lot better on the man advantage given that he had just one power play goal in the entire series against the Penguins.
The hope is that his game-winner in Game Seven will serve as a major spark for Panarin, and his resurgence or continued struggles could prove to be the biggest factor for the Rangers in Round Two.
2. Ryan Strome
When it comes to the playoffs, it is about simplifying your game and doing the basics right like getting to the hard areas, getting pucks on net and creating traffic in front of the net.
Another big factor is secondary scoring, and that’s something the Rangers will have to develop in the Second Round against a Carolina team that got big production from not only some of their big guns, but also from the likes of Seth Jarvis and Max Domi in their First Round series against the Boston Bruins, while former Ranger Tony DeAngelo contributed eight points (one goal, seven assists) from the point.
Outside of the top two lines, the Rangers didn’t see much production from the bottom of their lineup with the kids – Alexis Lafreniere, Filip Chytil and Kaapo Kakko – only recording eight points between them as good as they were against the Penguins, although Lafreniere was slotted into the top six at times.
Then there is Ryan Strome. He had six points against Pittsburgh but only one goal, which came in Game Two, and he will need to produce more offense in the Second Round.
While the hope is that Mika Zibanejad will now get hot after a strong finish to Round One, when it comes to match-ups it would help both Zibanejad and the Rangers if Strome was also lighting the lamp on a consistent basis in order to give Carolina three potent lines to have to worry about.
Strome did make an impact in the series against the Penguins with five helpers, including an assist in each of the last three games, while he recorded 17 hits, four blocked shots and 27 shots on goal, but becoming more of a scoring threat in Round Two would give the Rangers a far better chance of outgunning the Hurricanes and would also take the pressure of Zibanejad.
You need contributions from up and down your lineup in the postseason, and the onus will be on Strome to generate and drive secondary scoring in the Second Round.
3. Igor Shesterkin
This seems a strange one given that, aside from Games Three and Four, Igor Shesterkin was clutch throughout the First Round series against the Pittsburgh Penguins, making a combined total of 255 saves across the seven games, the most in a single series by a Rangers goaltender since at least 1955-56, when the NHL officially began tracking shots on goal.
However, the Vezina Trophy and Hart Trophy finalist is about to see his workload dramatically increase.
As much traffic as the Penguins got to the net, the Carolina Hurricanes will probably be busier and more dangerous in the offensive zone given the eye test and all of the underlying metrics.
For example, the Canes ranked fourth in Corsi For at five-on-five during the regular season, and they also arguably have more depth in their forward lines than the Penguins did.
On the flip side, the Hurricanes currently rank 14th in shots for per game played in the Stanley Cup Playoffs (29.4), but you have to take into account that they played a very good Boston Bruins team in the First Round who ranked third in shots against per game played, while the Rangers allowed 44.3 shots against per game played in their match-up against the Penguins, ranked 14th in the postseason.
With all that said, Shesterkin will have to be prepared to face a lot more pucks in the Second Round and he will need to avoid having any shaky moments as he did in Games Three and Four against Pittsburgh.
The Rangers bent but they didn’t break in Round One but the margin for error is a lot smaller the deeper you get into the playoffs, and Shesterkin is going to have to be near-perfect for this entire series if a spot in the Eastern Conference Finals is to be achieved.
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