4 wins and 1 loss this week. Today the Rangers beat #1 Boston 7-4. This is real.

The only teams to beat Boston in regulation are the Rangers and Detroit (twice!). On Friday, Detroit beat them 5-2 so they arrived in NY rather salty (and tenderized). Today’s matinee game was insane. Rangers take the lead 2-0 and then Boston ties it. Rangers score and then Boston answers back. Rangers score 3 times in a row and Boston manages one more before the Rangers make one more statement goal to make it 7-4.

The entire Rangers squad is playing well. I mean everyone. Every single line has produced goals and assists this week. A lot of guys got their first points this week. In today’s game, 14 players got points!

This was easily the hardest week schedule-wise: NJ, Dallas, Pitt, Philly, and Boston. Every game was fast and punishing. They lost only to Dallas after losing the lead and then all control in the 3rd. There were a lot of penalties this week, which is bad, but the PK stood strong and the PP kept making a difference. The perseverance has been inspiring this week.

The team has clearly bought into the Peter Laviolette system and it’s paying off. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Trouba play this well. He’s leading by example. He’s first in blocked shots in the league. Face-offs are great, hits are great, and everyone is blocking shots. The team supports the goalies at every chance and Shesterkin and Quick are doing the rest. There are breakdowns here and there on defense, but the offensive firepower is now so wide that they continue to win close games (Pitt and Philly were nail-biters).

This is all without Adam Fox and Filip Chytil. It sounds like Fox will be back for Detroit on the 29th (the only clear threat of this coming week) so holy cow. The PP will likely get even better. Chytil has finally started to practice which is very encouraging. I doubt he’ll be back playing this week though. When he returns I can’t imagine him taking his spot back from Trocheck on the 2nd line because the synergy they have going is red hot.

The team hasn’t been this good since 2014 and we love to see it.

11-2-1

The wins keep coming. This has been a tremendous start to the season as we get close to a quarter of the way through. It hasn’t all been good, but this team has shown tremendous resistance and determination.

With 23 points the NYRs are third place in the league, second in the Eastern Conference, and first in the Metropolitan division.

Adam Fox, Filip Chytil, and Igor Shesterkin remain out on injury. Jonathan Quick returned last night and kept the team in striking distance to win over Columbus in a shootout. Ryan Lindgren was unfortunately injured last night, hopefully it isn’t serious. Louie Domingue played between the pipes the game before to give Quick the time he needed to heal up and he did ridiculously well. No one thought the backup goalies would stand up so well (or so soon in the season). Very fortunate in that regard. I expect Shesterkin to be back to play against the Devils on Saturday.

Panarin continues his record-setting season. Points in every game so far, one more and he sets the franchise record. Rising tides raise all boats and in our case, that boat is named Alexis Lafreniere. He’s on the best streak of his career tallying his first 3-point game against Minnesota and then another 2 goals and the game-winning shootout goal last night. He’s at 7 goals, which he didn’t hit until February last season. Will Cuylle continues to impress, he’s well on his way to having a terrific rookie season. Erik Gustafsson has got to be the best deal in the NHL, he’s constantly making great plays and is starting to get points. Will and Erik have stepped up to cover for Chytil’s absence in the best ways possible.

Trocheck and Kreider have been coming up clutch as well. The special teams continue to dominate. The Power Play is second in the league at well over 30%! Penalty Kill is like 10th in the league, I think only one was allowed in the last 5 games. Overall the defense has been strong. Face-off wins are at an all-time high thanks to Trocheck, Zibanejad, and Bonino. The amount of stupid penalties is way down too.

Now for the rough edges. Way too many turnovers. We’ve gone from bad starts to bad second periods. The playmaking just disappears. They get trapped on defense for a long time and get tired and when a clear comes, the puck isn’t flipped out far enough in fear of an icing call, so the other team picks it up in the neutral zone right away and they zoom right back in, trapping the Rangers with none or one man getting a line change. They don’t try to skate it out, there is no plan leading into it, so they get stuck on defense for long stretches of time. It takes them forever to stop doing this, depending on a stoppage of play in the neutral zone to get a break.

Underperformers: Zibanejad, Kakko, Goodrow, Jones, Wheeler. Zibanejad, Kakko, and Goodrow are ice-cold in the points department. They’re getting away with it because of other exceptional players but they need to turn things around fast. Their lack of production on their chances is one of the reasons why the Columbus game was way closer than it should have been. Jones and Wheeler are currently the front runners in making costly mistakes. Jones is still a rookie but it’s disappointing. Hopefully, he’ll make strides in getting comfortable at the NHL level and improve sooner rather than later (I think it’s a minimum of 6 more games until Fox is expected back). Wheeler has finally broken his drought in goals and assists but he’s got to boost both of those something fierce to make up for his slow and sloppy play. Too frequently he looks like a boat anchor out there.

These 5 days off are happening at a good time. This odd break in the schedule (it’s not a bye week, that’s months away for All-Star weekend) is welcome as it could mean Chytil and Lindgren won’t miss any games this week and they can iron out the problems that have cropped up with focused practices. In Peter Laviolette we trust!

7-2-0

Oh, what a start to the season. The Rangers have set a franchise record by sweeping the 5 game road trip. That’s 10 juicy points. The 14 total points place them at the top of the Metropolitan division and third in the league. A lot is going right.

• Seattle 4-1 Win
• Calgary 3-1 Win
• Edmonton 3-0 Win
• Vancouver 4-3 OT Win
• Winnipeg 3-2 OT Win

Those last two games were crazy, must watch hockey. The Rangers’ special teams are doing incredibly well, often making the difference between a win and a loss. The defense as a whole is the best it has looked in years: aggressive, prominent forechecking, plenty of hits, and a ton of blocked shots. The team is consistently moving into the crease to help out the goalie. There are very few second chances because Shesterkin and Quick (huge props for JQ shaking off the preseason and showing everyone that he’s still a contender) are keeping rebounds to a minimum.

Face-off wins haven’t been this high in more than a decade. Panarin is in MVP mode with 5 goals and 10 assists in 9 games. Zibanejad is now waking up from his goal slumber with a clutch goal in the last 2 games; he has 9 total points. Krieder is a deflection god. Lafreniere is having the best start of his career with 4 goals.

In short, all the lines are doing well and the team is getting stronger with each game. This is so exciting.

There are problems that need to be worked on. Too many dumb penalties (Trocheck being at the front of this one) and there are a few guys who are expected to put up points and they aren’t. Chytil, Goodrow, Trocheck, Kakko, and Wheeler are all in hibernation. These are mostly 3rd and 4th line players. It’s important that the scoring depth branches out to make this a more robust and dangerous team. Even if we go with the lowest expectations and each guy gets only 1 goal and 2 assists a week, that’ll make a big difference. To start with I’d be happy for Trocheck to stop hitting the post and Kakko to hit the goalie instead of going wide. While the offense is lacking on these lines, the defense is doing well which is clutch. They aren’t a liability. It’s been a long time since the 4th line hasn’t been a mess. Hopefully, we won’t have to wait much longer for them to put up goals and assists. Teams are already stressed out with covering Fox, Panarin, Lafreniere, Kreider, and Zibanejad along with the threats of Miller, Gustafson, Trouba, and Schneider. Any more than that will strain any team to keep up. I think Kakko is the most likely to put up the most points of the current under achievers if he can follow through on the chances he gets.

The season is looking very bright. In Peter Laviolette we trust.

1-0-0

Buffalo is up first and that is going to be a statement game.

Me, last week

And I was right. With a 5-1 win, the New York Rangers showed up ready to play as a team. They must have worked tirelessly on every aspect of the game in the last week because they were nothing but impressive. All the way down the roster, everyone played well.

Alexis Lafreniere kicked off the scoring just 4 minutes into the game when Panarin got his own rebound and made a sweet pass to a wide-open Lafreniere. There’s been a lot of furrowed brows pointed at him for months now and there’s no better way to show off than to shut everyone down. He also had a phenomenal steal that let Panarin score his own beauty (last I saw Alexis did not get an assist credit for it).

The first period was complete domination by the Rangers. Kreider with his patented deflection for his first goal. In the third period, he got another one short-handed after a tremendous hustle from Zibanejad (3 assists for the night!). The second period was terrific until the end where Buffalo got some momentum with a goal at the end and then went on the power play.

The Rangers’ penalty kill did their job to get the team clean into the third period. It got really hairy when the Rangers got two more penalty kills quickly. It cut their own power play short by like 50 seconds. The second penalty came with 12 seconds left so that meant a no-let’s-avoid-this-please 5 on 3.

And what we got to see was nothing but heart and grit to snuff Buffalo’s power play. Buffalo gave it their all but the Rangers blocking shots stopped their best chances. I was having flashbacks to the John Tortorella era where he wanted everyone to be a human meat shield health be damned. It was wild and if this is the sign of things to come, Rangers Nation is here for it.

Will Cuylle had a hell of a game! He did his absolute best to make the team in training camp and he showed everyone tonight that it wasn’t a mistake or a fluke. He was flying on offense, and a PITA on defense. Really impressive. Our new D man Erik Gustafsson made his presence known too. I have a feeling I’ll be writing about him a lot too so I better memorize how to spell his last name. Shout out to Nick Bonino on his hard-nosed playing too. He made a big difference on face-offs and defense. Trouba crushed it too! Happy to see our Captain smiling out there. The only new guy I didn’t really notice was Blake Wheeler.

Speaking of face-offs, they said that was one area–along with special teams, which showed–coach Laviolette focused they worked on a lot. The wingers were told to push in to help when a face-off wasn’t won and it worked. Face off win percentage was up, which is rare. And when they didn’t win, the new system frequently worked so they weren’t skating around like chickens with their heads cut off for half the night. That added support meant Buffalo didn’t always control the puck for long when they did win it. One final checkmark for the night was Shesterkin winning his 100th NHL game.

Really promising stuff. If they can keep gelling as a team with the new play system and stay healthy, the Rangers are a huge threat to the entire league. This could be a wild season. The games versus the Devils, Islanders, and Penguins are going to be insane.

Pre-season is supposed to build confidence in your team. The new guys start to fit in, training is in full swing, maybe some new coaching systems are being learned, and lines are figured out. In the Rangers case, almost all of the coaching staff is new along with head coach Peter Laviolette. So there is a brand new system to learn and become comfortable with for the entire team. That game plan is reportedly to be more aggressive.

Now going 1-5 in the pre-season is not a confidence builder to fans like myself. They beat the Islanders once and that’s it. Game 2 against the Devils was horribly embarrassing. They let 3 powerplay goals in. Special teams have been horrible. 1-20 on the powerplay if I remember tonight’s game against Boston correctly.

It’s hard not to be in a panic right now. The whole “pre-season doesn’t matter” saying is largely true as the games don’t count. But there was little to like in these 2 weeks of games. Yes, most of the line-ups were temporary with all of the rookies taking a spin, but at the end, you expect to and need to see some kind of progress and gelling as a team. Do you know who is doing that? The Devils. The Rangers aren’t. The Devils are in the same division and they are going to be better than last year. The time of the Devils being little more than a speed bump for the Rangers is over.

The last game wasn’t horrible against Boston but losing a 1 goal lead is bad. Letting in another powerplay goal is bad. Not scoring on the power play is bad. A bunch of posts were hit and the defense wasn’t embarrassing, as seen by the penalty kill shutting down Boston proper, twice. Panarin, Kreider, and Zibanejad need to show the hell up and do it quickly and consistently.

There were flashes of greatness, like from Will Cuylle and Kaapo Kakko. Blake Wheeler, Brennan Othmann (will he make opening night?), Nick Bonino, and Barclay Goodrow all come to mind in doing something notable. But Chytil is still hurt and we can throw Lafreniere onto the pile of “wtf is going on?”

The team should be better than last year. There’s a lot of talent that can play scary good. The new players should make a positive impact. The team has to be better because the competition has gotten better league-wide. If the Rangers don’t take the steps forward that they need to, they are going to get run over. Like, last to second to last in the division. That’s kiss the playoffs goodbye. Coach Laviolette and company have a lot to work on over the next week. Buffalo is up first and that is going to be a statement game.

The wait for the 2023-2024 NHL season is almost over! Preseason has started and the oh-so-important opening night lines are being drawn up and tested.

The New York Rangers played their first game against the Boston Bruins 3-0. The Rangers lineup was almost entirely the younger players (like Jones and Cuylle) and those who were just drafted or are on the minor league teams. So it was a big tryout game as players go out to prove they’ve got what it takes for the regular season. A few guys were cut before and after the game.

While the score isn’t what you want to see, the effort was there and the Bruins new goalie was on fire. Robbed many great shots and 3 or so pipes were hit. Still, none of them went in and Jonathan Quick didn’t have a great game (he played half the game). He bungled one shot which he should have stopped the other one was more or less out of control.

Nothing that alarming to see and there are 5 more games until Oct. 12 when the regular season starts against Buffalo. Tuesday is next against the Islanders and many of the big guns will be playing along with more lineup changes. It’s time to keep a close eye on Lafreniere, Chytil, and Kakko as it’s expected to see them take more prominent roles and increased ice time under new coach Peter Laviolette.

We have an interesting lineup for the final four this year. Vegas and Florida have never won the cup (this is Vegas’ 6th season) and Dallas and Carolina haven’t taken the championship in quite some time.

With how everyone has been playing, I think the favorites for the final are Vegas and Florida. I have no idea how Florida and Carolina are going to match up. I think they play similar styles and it each game should be very close. I’d be surprised to see any blow outs and I think it’ll go 6 games.

Dallas is going to have their work cut out for them. Seattle pushed them to 7 games and Dallas did win pretty handily…it looked like Seatle ran out of gas. Vegas has been humming along, their power play is looking dangerous. I do think this will be a close series as well. I’ve seen more of Vegas play than Dallas, so I’m more in the dark on this series. The East starts tonight and the West starts tomorrow.

My prediction for the Rangers’ first round would be a win in 6 or 7 games. I thought no matter who won, it’d be close. What happened was the JV team showed up and handed the Devils their first pass to the second round in 12 years.

It started out well!

Two 5-1 wins on New Jersey home ice made it look like the Rangers would move on in 5 games. Then the Devils made some appropriate changes and won the next three games in a row.

2-1, 3-1, 4-0. That first one was close, it felt like either team could win like whoever made a mistake first would lose. The Rangers let that get away from them. The next two games were just a slide into the dumpster. The Rangers couldn’t get any sustained offensive pressure and the rookie goalie came across like he’d one the Vesna trophy multiple times.

Game 6, the Rangers rallied back 5-2. After falling over themselves it was back to a legit Rangers hockey game. Then another total collapse to lose Game 7 and the series 4-0.

So the post season matched the regular season. Inconsistent. Moments of brilliance pulled back into incompetence. There was an alarming amount of time when the team played disjointed. A lack of a clear plan and communication on ice. Terrible passing–turnovers got out of control and the Devils pounced on it.

Too many of the team’s all-stars didn’t show up to play hockey. Artemi Panarin is the worst offender. He had 2 assists in the first game and that’s it. He was more of a liability than anything with how much he was getting stuffed on offense and a parking cone on defense. One of the highest paid players in the NHL can’t do that. Scoring 90 points helps get your team into the playoffs. You also need to play to keep your team in the playoffs.

The better team of 7 games won, that’s the short end of it. There are a ton of things to complain about (stubbornness of only using the first power play unit, underutilizing the “kids”, not disciplining the veterans when they play like a baboon, and holy animal what happened to forechecking) but it’s all hot air now. Changes have to be made for next season as this is not a championship team.

A new coach? Maybe. There are a lot of factors to this question but knee-jerk reactions will just cause more chaos. Kane and Tarasenko did well, just not the high bar everyone was expecting. Kane was the most disappointing in the playoffs. New players? Probably but with what money and who do you let go? You need to know a replaced position will be demonstrably better. This solution could also be more drastic line changes with a little personnel change. The younger players need to continue to do strength, conditioning, and skate training through the off season. Everyone has to be better next season.

It’s been a terrible feeling of such a brutal loss with such a good roster. Tampa, Colorado, and Boston all lost too (Boston being the biggest disaster, so thanks for taking some of the shame spotlight best team in the history of the NHL!) so the Stanley Cup is completely up for grabs. Every series has been wild and so far the second-round matchups continue that trend. I’d like to see Seatle win for the Cinderella story and Toronto for the redemption arc. Edmonton winning would be good just for a Canadian team to finally get the Cup up north.

The Devils got smacked down 5-1 by Carolina in the first game…we’ll see if they can turn it around again. I’m thinking they won’t.

The fate of the known universe begins tonight! The 82 game marathon is complete. The 16 team, 2 month gauntlet erupts tonight. This is the most stacked bracket in years and while there are favorites to win, anything can happen. The playoffs are a different animal from the regular season. Endurance and focus are the ultimate tests. The Rangers and Devils contest starts tomorrow. For now, a hype video!

47-22-13

This was not how I wanted the season to end. A SO loss to Buffalo after they came from behind to force OT. Then the Rangers blew another leading game to a regulation loss against Toronto.

Buffalo was fighting tooth and nail to try to scrape their way into playoffs and while they didn’t end up making it, the effort was there. For too much of the game, the Rangers’ effort didn’t seem like it was there. Oh, we have the lead, we can take it from here easily. No. And that happened a lot this season.

For Toronto, both teams were locked into their playoff positions (Tampa vs Toronto) so the game didn’t matter. It started that way too as it looked like a pre-season game. Pretty slow, low impact. That was the whole 1st period. Then the Rangers scored in the second (fantastic shot from Kakko) and Toronto was like…Ya know, maybe we don’t want to lose the last game of the season, and they started playing harder. They scored, Schneider made an incredible goal to take the lead again and it was called offside and taken away. That annoyed the Rangers who went on a rampage when they went on the power play shortly after. Toronto scored shortly after that, which also happened a lot this season. Then with about 7 minutes left in the game, Toronto took the lead after cleaning up a rebound. The Rangers fought like hell to the end and had another goal get taken away, this time for Chytil kicking it in. Not the kind of momentum you want to go into the Playoffs.

The Rangers really should have taken second in the division instead of third. First really was in reach too. Those games that got away from them added up to the Devils’ finishing 5 points ahead. It is what it is, I guess. Maybe they were more concerned with being rested and healthy for the playoffs. Which they are. So that means no excuses for not hitting the ice at full power for game 1. It’s going to be an absolute war against the Devils and they can’t be sloppy against them. They know what that team is capable of after 4 games in the season where they were all very close games where mistakes left the door open for the Devils to come back and win. The coaching staff has some serious work to do to make a winning strategy. The most important games start Tuesday, the 18th.

As a bonus, the Capitals and Penguins failed to make the playoffs. That ends an 8-year and 16 (!) year streak! Both teams will likely have very different rosters come October as they have too many glaring flaws that can’t be patched over anymore.

47-21-12

The week started as well as we could want. A solid 6-3 drubbing of the Tampa Bay Lightning. The Rangers took control right away taking a 3-0 lead and managed to keep the lead for the entire game. Tampa hasn’t been playing well lately and that doesn’t bode well for the playoffs which are only a week away. A great pickup of points for many Rangers players, but the same outcome wasn’t on the table for St. Louis.

The Rangers were clearly exhausted from playing Tampa, overnight travel to St. Louis, and then lining up for the face-off 24 hours after Tampa. Sloppy plays from start to finish with turnovers being a massive problem. The Rangers managed to fight back enough to force the game to OT but another botched defensive coverage play meant the Rangers only stole 1 point.

A bounce back 4-0 finish against Columbus was great to watch, if not expected. Columbus is terrible so anything that wasn’t a solid win would have been bad. Heads up play, great defense, and very few penalties. Kane played which made the first full roster in a very long time. Everyone is playing well, so I feel the team is in a good place. Kane still looks like he isn’t 100% comfortable yet but I do get the feeling that he will hit his stride for the playoffs. I’m not sure if it’s nerves or whatever but he’s not making big waves. He did play well last night and got an assist so there’s not much to complain about.

The Rangers are comfortably in 3rd place so the final games against Buffalo and Toronto are meaningless in terms of rank. The odds of them playing against Carolina instead of New Jersey is up to the Devils, but the odds are the 1st round will be against New Jersey. There are many close wildcard races, the most eyebrow-raising being Pittsburgh trying to claw over the Islanders or Florida. It’s impossible to predict as it’s going to come down to which team loses one game and Pittsburgh does not. It’s only a 1 point edge! Tremendous pressure, I’m glad the Rangers aren’t in that position.

45-21-11

For the second season in a row, the New York Rangers have surpassed 100 points and still have 5 games left.

The loss to NJ was the worst…maybe. Losing in OT to Buffalo was probably more offensive since Buffalo probably won’t make the playoffs. In both games, the Rangers got scored on first and the rest was a game of catch-up. The Devils got 7 points out of the Rangers (to their 3) this season, a series that hasn’t gone that way in years. Every game was close, so the likely playoff series will be a non-stop battle where any mistake could turn the tide.

Columbus and Washington were nothing more than speed bumps to run over this week. Tampa and Toronto should be the only challenges remaining, depending on how depressed St. Louis is feeling on Thursday.

Kakko, Lafreniere, and Chytil are playing really well which makes the entire team harder to play against. There’s less reliance on the first line so that’s taking the pressure and the physical stress off of those players. Miller had a fantastic game against Washington and Mikkola has been impressive game after game. Since Lindgren has been out he’s getting more ice time. Tarasenko and Kane pop up for celebrity points here and there and the PK remains strong. The PP is producing again but it’s still too much of a struggle to get anything going. If the PP lines get their act together and can convert to something like a consistent 22% for the playoffs, it’ll make a massive and much-needed difference. I don’t think they’ll make it out of the first round without the special teams being a force.