On Sunday, the New York Rangers defeated their divisional rival, the New York Islanders, 5-2 to pick up their eighth win of the season. Against a depleted Islanders team without players such as Matthew Barzal, Anthony Duclair and Adam Pelech, New York was able to have its way.
Offensively, the Rangers tallied five goals - one being an empty netter by Artemi Panarin - and it would have been more if not for the heroics of Ilya Sorokin, who tallied 35 saves on Sunday afternoon. Let's dive into the Rangers' offensive performance and give it a grade.
Sunday's matchup saw the Blueshirts roll out new Lines, and one that got a significant amount of attention was Panarin, Mika Zibanejad and Alexis Lafreniere. This was clearly an effort to get Zibanejad going, pairing him with New York's top two scorers.
To be fair, Zibanejad did get going - he had three assists. But, none of them were at even strength; one was shorthanded on Chris Kreider's opening goal, one on a power play and one on an empty netter, both to Artemi Panarin. Zibanejad did show flashes of life and got three points, but the Panarin-Zibanejad-Lafreniere line was good enough.
The other top six line of Kreider, Filip Chytil and Kaapo Kakko was effective, especially Chytil, who has been on fire to start this season. While there were no results on Sunday, the more this line stays together, it will start to produce. It has pure scoring power with Kreider, a playmaker in Kakko and Chytil continues to look like an all-around player if healthy.
The bottom six also provided high grades. A line of Vincent Trocheck, Reilly Smith and Will Cuylle has to be considered one of the top bottom six lines in the league; based on the eye-test, you get a 70+ point scorer, a former Stanley-Cup Champion who has scoring power and an ascending young player who should be a mainstay for the Rangers for a while. Trocheck had a goal - his 200th in his NHL career - off a feed from Smith to make the game 2-0.
Even the fourth line got into the scoring action on a scrappy goal by Adam Edstrom. With Jimmy Vesey's return, the line of Edstrom, Vesey and Sam Carrick has potential. It leaves Johnny Brodzinski and Matt Rempe on the outside, but Peter Laviolette is looking for consistency.
Here are the overall forward line, and offensive, grades from Sunday:
Panarin-Zibanejad-Lafreniere: B+
Kreider-Chytil-Kakko: B
Cuylle-Trocheck-Smith: A
Edstrom-Carrick-Vesey: B+
Reason: B+ is fair for the Rangers' offensive performance. They tallied five goals and it could have been more without Sorokin's heroics. But, only two came at even strength, each by a bottom-six line. The top six's new formation showed potential but was not on the scoresheet at even strength.
But, as always, special teams were a heavy contributor to New York's performance. The Rangers dominated the Islanders, especially when Patrick Roy's squad had the man-advantage; the Islanders were 0-5 on the power play and the Rangers scored the opening goal of the game short handed.
As for the Rangers' power play, they did get one goal by Artemi Panarin; New York was 1-3 on the day. The Rangers are an opportunistic team at special teams, and getting two goals - the difference in the game before the empty netter - was big, as it is in every performance.