Through ten games the mood amongst Rangers fans is not good. At 4-5-2 the Rangers are third-to-last in the Eastern Conference on points percentage, recently suffered back-to-back losses to the two worst teams in the league, and have not won a home game yet (0-4-1). I will admit that it is hard to be optimistic at this point, but I am not in panic mode yet. While the win over the Canucks is slightly comforting, my belief is more in the veterans on the team and coaching staff to right the ship.
The main issue to start the season has been the Rangers’ offense. They have scored just 16 goals through 11 games which ranks 27th in the league to date. They have been shut out three times already and have scored just one goal another three times. On the surface, that is ugly. However, if you have watched the games, this is not entirely their fault. They have been getting goalied. A lot. Whether it be Dustin Wolf robbing Alexis Lafrenière, Charlie Lindgren stealing a save on Mika Zibanejad, or Anthony Stolarz making a sprawling save on Will Cuylle, there are seemingly 50 highlights of opposing goaltenders making improbable saves against the Rangers. Ultimately, the top six on this team has too much talent get consistently stonewalled and they should start executing better around the net.
This feeds into my next point which is more analytically driven. Despite having just 16 goals on the year, the Rangers’ have 26.06 expected goals, third in the league. Their Corsi% is 52.63%, eighth in the league. Their shooting percentage is 6.56%, 31st in the league. This is all to say the Rangers are putting themselves in position to score but just are not finishing and have faced excellent goaltending. Shooting percentage is not a sticky statistic throughout the season and tends to vary over time. Expected goals and Corsi% are typically seen as more predictive and would indicate that the team is due for some positive regression.
Finally, in a return to gameplay analysis, the Rangers are learning a brand-new system with a significant number of new players. For the past few seasons much of the criticism around Gerard Gallant and Peter Laviolette is that there was not much structure to the Rangers’ offense. Under Mike Sullivan, that has changed. Sullivan has the Rangers forechecking more and with a different structure (1-2-2 vs. 1-3-1). He has made tweaks to their defensive zone coverage and their breakouts. All of this is a lot to learn, even for a veteran team like the Rangers. It does not make it easier that guys like J.T. Miller, Carson Soucy, Taylor Raddysh, Noah Laba, and Conor Sheary are either new this season or were acquired late last season. Building chemistry in a new system is not intuitive and there will be growing pains.
To be clear, none of this means the Rangers will turn it around. At some point, expected goals are just that “expected” and not real. Rangers fans know all too well that this team has a very low conversion percentage on breakaways and tends to miss open nets more than they should. Maybe they really are too old, too soft, and not talented enough to be a competitive team this year. But I am not making that determination yet. Between the strong defense through 11 games, the signals for offensive improvement, and Igor Shesterkin, it is fully possible that this team could be fun. Let’s give them a little more time.