4 Things To Calm New York Rangers’ Fans Down

OH, MIKA
Let’s calm all the crazy talk about trading, cutting, buying out or benching Mika Zibanejad. The Rangers aren’t getting anywhere near the conference finals again if he doesn’t regain his swagger. The best thing to do is to reset the lines but go with a meritocracy when dishing out 5×5 ice time. Therefore, if things continue as they are, no matter what you might call each line, the ice time should be given out as follows:

1. Panarin-Trocheck-Lafreniere
2. Cuylle-Chytil-Kakko
3. Kreider-Zibanejad-Smith
4. Edstrom-Carrick-Vesey

Credit Peter Laviolette for mixing things up to get the Rangers to play a steadier brand of hockey, and trying to spark Mika out of his slump, but it didn’t work. If anything, it worked to cool off Panarin and Lafreniere. In their 5+ seasons together we’ve seen plenty of power play magic between Mika and Panarin, but rarely any chemistry at 5×5. Good try coach, but glad you went back to the original lines, you needed to get the first line back together and you needed to take some of the pressure off Mika. Tell him to take care of the defensive end while we wait for his inevitable hot streak on offense. In the meantime, dish out ice time based on merit, not stature.

NO DEFENSE
In general, the Rangers defensive issues have been collective and not just on the backend, but no doubt Ryan Lindgren and K’Andre Miller have struggled since Lindgren’s return. Laviolette is reuniting Miller with Adam Fox as that pairing had a very strong start to the season together. In the same fashion as above, the coach should divvy up the 5×5 ice time based on recent form as follows:

Miller-Fox
Jones-Schneider
Lindgren-Trouba

With a little less responsibility and a defensive minded partner, Lindgren should be able to catch up after missing most of training and trying to get used to performing with a full-face shield. Lindgren and Jacob Trouba have experience together on the Rangers primary penalty-kill unit and gives the Rangers a potential lockdown pair.

INTERNAL GROWTH
The adage, “if you are standing still, you are falling behind”, has many fans worried that the Rangers have not improved enough from last season. This is both unfair and incorrect. Unfair in the sense the Rangers cap situation made signing someone last summer like Jake Guentzel untenable, and incorrect in the sense that it assumes that the Rangers could not get any better since their core is a group of veterans. Well, all you must do is review the first two “things” above and see that we are advocating for more ice time, based on merit, for Fillip Chytil (25), Kaapo Kakko (23), Zac Jones (24, Braden Schneider (23) and Will Cuylle (22). All 5 of these players, and Lafreniere (23) have improved and could continue to get better as we head toward the trade deadline. Plus, there’s Victor Mancini (22) who is now in Hartford who has proved that he is ready to play if an opening comes about. Will there be trades at the deadline? Probably, but it is not a requirement for last year’s President’s Trophy winning team to add to be better than they were last spring.

THE HAT TRICK FOR SUCCESS
The Rangers biggest strengths in this post-letter run are their special teams (power play currently ranked 6^thand penalty kill is ranked 3^rd) and their goaltending (no explanation necessary). Now, that hasn’t proven to be Cup-worthy due to the Rangers lack of 5×5 scoring both times they reached the conference finals in the last three years, but let’s bury the lead in this sentence that they MADE the conference finals twice in the last three year. The key to fixing the 5×5 problem in the playoffs, is to find more depth in the regular season so teams can’t key on just the Rangers top six. IF the Zibanejad, Kreider & Smith line and the Lindgren & Trouba pair are still running 3^rd come April, and they are all back to playing to their norm, the Rangers will be well-positioned for another deep run.