Three Reasons the Rangers let the Devils Tie the Series at MSG
This series is tied and we’re going back to the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey with the Devils having a chance to push the Rangers to the brink of elimination. Just a friendly reminder if you have forgotten, the New York Rangers won both games at the Prudential Center 5-1. They outscored the Devils 10-2 and there should be some hope ahead of what is going to be a decisive game 5.
New York started this series strongly and just faded the second they got back to Madison Square Garden. Road teams have won all four games in this series to this point. New Jersey is a far better road team than the home team, that is fair to say, but the Rangers did not look like the New York Rangers we watched for 82 games this season when they were on home ice and that is not good enough.
So, this series is tied and the Rangers now have to find a way to redo all the hard work they did to take a series lead away from New Jersey the last time they visited the Prudential Center. To not be able to capitalize on a major advantage by winning both games away from home by failing to take a single win on home ice is just not good enough. We know this series is coming back to Madison Square Garden.
There are reasons the Rangers stunk the Garden out. There are more reasons than I think anyone would like to read about and I think there are more reasons than anyone would like to admit that bleeds New York Rangers blue. But sometimes, it is therapeutic to torture yourself by pointing out the flaws of an NHL team. Anyway, here are just a few of the reasons that the New York Rangers were unable to take anything from the games at home.
Underperforming Center cores
I think it has become clear that the big reason the Rangers were able to take both games from the Garden is because of their star center. Jack Hughes has just straight-up outperformed Mika Zibanejad to this point in the series and it hasn’t been close. Hughes has been the best center in this series and I would make the argument the second-best center in this series has been Nico Hischier. That’s the big problem.
Vincent Trocheck is a serviceable second-line center, but he is clearly the weakest of the top six centers in this series. He’s fine as a guy to anchor the two stars that are on his line if they show up and play like they were brought in to do, but they haven’t and Trocheck has not been able to perform at the highest level. This does not look like the player Chris Drury and the front office wanted to bring in from Carolina in the summer.
As for Mika Zibanejad, he has flat-out been a non-entity in this series. He’s got 2 assists. Zibanejad needs to be the best player for the Rangers or else they are not going to go anywhere. When the Stockholm, Sweden native is sleepwalking through a series like this, the Rangers are not going to find much success. They need their star center to wake up and match the production of Jack Hughes.
Filip Chytil has had a fantastic season and has truly broken through. When he is the best center in the series so far for the Rangers, there are glaring issues with this team. Someone above Chytil in the lineup needs to figure it out and get their play together because right now this has the Rangers golfing in about a week while the Devils move on to play the winner of the Hurricanes-Islanders series.
Silent stars
I just talked about how Vincent Trocheck and Mika Zibanejad need to be better, but they are not the only perpetrators here. Outside of Chris Kreider and maybe Vladimir Tarasenko, the entire top six has not been good enough. There are players in this top six that have been considered the best in the NHL, some of the most gifted that the hockey landscape has ever known and they have been silent to this point.
No one embodies this more than Artemi Panarin. He’s in the conversation to be one of the best passers of the puck in hockey. He’s been deafly silent in this series. Just two assists through four games is not good enough for the best player on this Rangers team. If the Breadman doesn’t wake up soon and start to put the puck in the net, there is going to be a lot of time for him to put the ball in the hole on the golf course.
Patrick Kane is dealing with a lingering hip issue and he isn’t the same player he used to be. That is all fair to say. But I’d still suggest it is fair to expect more out of the 2013 Conn Smythe winner, a former Hart Trophy winner, and the former rookie of the year when he was a far younger man. This is not the Kane that dominated the league 10 years ago, but he is still better than this because this is just not going to be good enough.
If one of the Rangers stars does not wake up and make themselves heard in this series, it may be a very quick trip to New Jersey and back. Something needs to change for the Rangers moving forward and if their stars are not the ones to wake up and realize that their season is in very real danger of ending after the first round, they may as well book the golf courses they want to play on this summer.
Goalie duel
When this series was being played in New Jersey, Igor Shesterkin was able to get the better of Vitek Vanacek. Igor gave up just two goals away from the Garden and Vanacek was the backstopper for both of the Devils’ 5-1 losses on home ice. After that, Lindy Ruff and his coaching staff opted to make a change in the crease for the Devils and since then, the Blueshirts have been stumped with what to do moving forward.
Akira Schmid has come in and allowed just 2 goals in more than six periods of hockey. If you are allowing just one goal a game in the playoffs, you are going to go far and the Rangers have not had an answer for the persistent progress of the Swiss netminder. As Schmid continues to get himself situated in this series, he is going to cause more issues for the Ranger forwards if they do not figure out a way to get the puck past him.
This should not be seen as a slight at Igor. Shesterkin has been fantastic in this series and he had something like a .983 save percentage at even strength before the start of game four. I’m sorry that is not more up-to-date, I didn’t exactly want to go and look at how much worse everything got after such an ugly game. Igor has not been the issue the Rangers have come up empty-handed on home ice.
However, this has not been the Igor we saw last year. We know Shesterkin has this ability to put the Rangers on his back and carry the team past an opponent. New Jersey has found a goalie that is going to try and do that for them and if the Rangers’ elite goalie can find that next gear to go back to being the most dominant goalie in the league, the Rangers are going to be able to stay in this series while making it a low scoring affair.