The New Look NY Rangers: Reinvented Once Again

By Deb Seymour ~ March 7, 2023

I’ve been on a short hiatus from this blog since December; life’s just been super busy. But I’m extremely grateful to all the people who’ve inquired about the blog over the past three months.

And, it couldn’t be a better time to write about the NY Rangers, because they’ve decided to reinvent themselves yet again during the culmination of their rebuild — and with limited cap space, to boot. That cap space will be so limited in the upcoming off-season, the Rangers need to both go for it now and make some tough roster decisions come summer.

GM Chris Drury has been busy over the past month. Moreover, although you never want to see injuries or suspensions plague your team, those too have contributed to making the past few weeks for the Rangers a bit of a roller coaster.

With the acquisitions of Tyler Motte (second stint with the Rangers) from the Ottawa Senators, Vladimir Tarasenko from the St. Louis Blues, and Patrick Kane from the Chicago Blackhawks, the Rangers have added several veteran forwards with acknowledged skills on the ice and and critical postseason experience; and the addition of Niko Mikkola (also from the Blues) shores up the defense just a bit more.

But the salary cap challenges in making these acquisitions (particularly in the case of Kane) have abruptly coincided with: an injury to the player who’s arguably the Rangers’ most important pure defenseman, Ryan Lindgren; an ugly-looking injury inflicted on Motte by former teammate and left winger Auston Watson; and a suspension handed down by NHL Player Safety to K’Andre Miller, who spat (he claims accidentally) on LA Kings’ defenseman Drew Doughty during an altercation between several Rangers and Kings on the ice.

So, between the cap crunch and injuries and suspensions and new players trying to find their roles on the team, Rangerland hasn’t been the happiest place on earth for the past week or two.

The Rangers have played multiple games shorthanded, barred by the cap and the NHL from calling up emergency fill-ins from AHL Hartford; and they’ve dropped a couple of games that could possibly have been won at full strength, particularly with two of their most crucial defensemen in the lineup.

It’s been said many times this season the Rangers still need their goaltenders to be Vezina-like due to weaknesses in the team’s defensive game; and perhaps there’s some truth to that. But it’s also true that the forwards over the course of this season, with perhaps exceptions in Mika Zibanejad and the “kid line,” are not playing to the standard they did last season; and just like the answer to an average offense is an above average defense, the answer to an average defense is an above average offense.

And that’s what the Rangers hope to glean from their three important offensive additions of the past month.

A truly complete NHL lineup fields four offensive lines that can contribute in specific, though not identical, ways. For the Rangers, that’s been pretty unrealized over the past several years. It would be challenging, at best, to name a fourth line that’s been a real contributor for them during the recent rebuild. Now, however, with a healthy Motte, the Rangers can put a fourth line on the ice of Motte, Goodrow, and Vesey. They’re not going to score you a ton of goals, but there’s some good two-way play on that line — and they could spell the top nine more effectively than most of the other fourth lines the Rangers have run out there over the past several years.

The bigger question is how the other two new offensive acquisitions best fit on the Rangers. And it’s going to take some practice sessions and more actual games to determine whether the best fit for Kane is on a line with his old teammate, Artemi Panarin. Both heavy passers by nature, the sometimes light-shooting Rangers definitively need to figure this one out well before the playoffs. Though a somewhat more under the radar acquisition, Tarasenko could prove as critical an addition as Kane if he facilitates significant shooting both on the power play and at even strength.

After scoring in his first game as a Ranger, Tarasenko took a few additional games to look like he’d found his footing with the team and to score again. There’s no doubt Kane will also contribute at a top level once he finds his best fit; the goal is to not have the regular season clock tick down to its final seconds before that happens.

Over the course of his career, Kane’s scored almost three times as many goals at even strength as he has on the power play (324 at 5×5; 122 on the PP). Do the Rangers need power play improvement this year? Yes, they do — and that’s actually an entirely separate topic. But their challenges in scoring at even strength over the past several seasons are well documented, and this season is looking a whole lot like last year: 2022-2023 — 154 EV/44 PP — which projects out to roughly the same as last year’s ratio by season’s end, 2021-2022 — 187 EV/55 PP.

Can Patrick Kane help provide a little uptick in the ratio? There aren’t many games left for that, for better or worse. But if he can, and certainly if he feels comfortable enough on the Rangers by the postseason to do so, that would be a major upgrade.

All that said, there still are a lot of questions for the Rangers during this week of readjustment.

One has to hope both Motte and Lindgren can re-join the team in short order. Some high quality difference makers have been added in a very tight cap situation. Now, it’s up to the team to show whether this particular reinvention can turn them into the Stanley Cup contender we’re all hoping for.