Rangers Glass Half Full | The Cutting Edge W/JackKnife

It's been almost two full weeks since Igor Shesterkin went down with a season ending lower-body injury.  Thankfully, the New York Rangers have not folded.  Don't get me wrong, there are flaws, but overall, this team is good and holding their own in the face of adversity. 

The Blueshirts currently sit 2nd in the Metropolitan division with 15 points, and a 7-3-1 record.  This includes six straight wins at Madison Square Garden to open the season.  That's basically doing a complete 180 on the struggles at home the previous year.  If you were to tell Ranger fans they would be in this spot despite losing Shesterkin, I think a majority of them would be happy.  So what's there to be excited about, but what's also concerning?

Emerging youngsters

I think the obvious place to start would be with forward Alexis Lafrenière.  Laffy leads the team in goals with seven and with six assists, has 13 points in 11 games.  I've said in previous blogs how even though he didn't put up any points the first three games, Lafrenière was passing the eye test.  When Laffy got two empty netters to complete a hat trick against the Islanders a couple weeks ago, I viewed that as the hockey gods saying, "okay kid, you've been doing great and not getting the luck.  Here's a couple free ones on us."

With a couple goals against the Tampa Bay Lightning last week, Lafrenière briefly held the NHL lead in goals before Kirill Kaprizov netted a couple of his own the same night.  But Laf is doing more than just scoring.  He's doing a lot of the little things it takes to battle for pucks and drive play It's great to see Laffy driving play.  All those little things it takes to win.  It's even showing up in the advanced metrics to show how effective he's been.  His confidence is booming and it can be seen on this beautiful secondary assist he had to set up a tic-tac-toe goal by Gabe Perreault against the Anaheim Ducks.  

Speaking of Perreault, he's not doing to bad himself either.  Four goals, and three assists for seven points in 11 games is pretty decent for the 21-year-old winger.  Centering the two youngsters is Mika Zibanejad who has two goals, and seven assists for nine points in 11 games to start the year.  That line is so effective for the Rangers that fans are begging head coach Mike Sullivan not to break it up again.  If that were to happen, it would be more so because the second line might need a spark instead of that line not performing.  Regardless, it's great to see the Rangers youngsters finally getting rewarded.  Still waiting on the Alberts Smits first career point, but he's been solid on defense so far.  

The man who stepped up 

You would be hard pressed to find a Ranger fan who didn't think the team was screwed when Shesterkin went down the season ending injury.  One could hardly blame them, the Rangers played so poorly the past two years and when they were good the three seasons prior, they relied heavily on their elite goalie.  

However, the Rangers skaters have rised to the challenge, and the backup goalie who was initially supposed to start the year in Hartford, Dylan Garand, has answered the call and has been solid in net since getting the starting job.   Garand's record to start the season is 4-2-1, with 1.85 goals against average, and a .929 save percentage.  Those numbers could be even better had it not been for a game where the team turned into a pumpkin (we'll touch on that later), and a had it not been for a couple garbage time goals with under two minutes left against Anaheim. 

According to Money Puck, Garand has saved four goals above expected.  So while he's not exactly going for the Vezina, he's playing well enough for the Rangers to keep winning, and ride the storm that is being without one of the best goalies in the world.  He's even got RA of Spittin' Chiclets thinking he can be a potential candidate for the Calder Trophy.  One thing is for sure, if Garand somehow found himself on waivers again, zero chance he clears it this time.  Not that I think that would happen this season, despite rumors of the Blueshirts making a trade for another goalie (whether it be Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen, or Connor Hellebuyck).  The Rangers might have themselves a little situation on their hands next year when Shesterkin is healthy again.  What do they do with Garand at that point?  Well that's a question for the offseason.  For now, he's the guy, and he's doing well.  

Monkey on his back

Perhaps the biggest acquisition this offseason was Pavel Dorofeyev.  The Russian winger only has five points (two goals, and three assists) in 11 games.  He's got a team high 35 shots, but the best way to describe him right now, is snake bitten.  Nowhere was that more clear when he had a wide open net and hit the post against the Ducks the other night.  

Dorofeyev also found himself briefly in the doghouse with Sullivan after staying on for a shift too long.  To perhaps make Dorofeyev more mental, the Rangers scored on that shift he was off.  Nice to see JT Miller get one on the board.  He's picked it up a bit, seven points (two goals, five assists) in 11 games, would like to see a little more points wise, but we're talking about Dorofeyev this segment.  

Friend of NTS, Jonny Lazarus, put up a compilation of the chances Dorofeyev had against Anaheim (including said post), but as Lazzy said, it's not like Dorofeyev is completely invisible.  He's getting chances, but the picks aren't going in.  This can be shown in some of the analytical numbers that Dorofeyev has.  So if he keeps this up, maybe the pucks will start going in more often.  We the fans are still waiting for Dorofeyev to become Scoreofeyev.  

Road woes

The Rangers seemed to have solved the struggles they have had at home the past two seasons.  However, on the road it's a different story as their record is 1-3-1.  This includes a game a week ago today where a Miller turnover turned into an absolute beat down from the New Jersey Devils.  This was the game they turned into a pumpkin that I referenced earlier.  I wish the Rangers hated the Devils in a similar way New Jersey and their fans hate us, but that's a story I'll have in December when we play them again.  

The Rangers did manage to prove that performance was an outlier in their next game when they shut out the Columbus Blue Jackets in regulation at Nationwide Arena.  One problem though, notice how I said regulation?  That's because the Rangers didn't score any goals themselves and they lost in overtime.  

So the Rangers have struggled on the road.  Only one, maybe two if you count opening night, turned out to be real.bad performances.  But the Rangers have a chance to make things right away from the Garden in the next few days.  

A new measuring stick

At the time of this blog, the Rangers start a mini road trip to Ontario.  They play the Toronto Maple Leafs tonight and then take on the Ottawa Senators on Saturday.  Both those teams are currently in a playoff spot, and off to decent starts, so this is going to be a great test for the Rangers to show they can not only win on the road, but beat the good teams on the road.  While I'm not expecting any atmospheres similar to how Sens fans welcomed back Parker from Mr. Meaty, I'm sorry, Brady Tkachuk (seriously, you can't tell me that this doesn't look like him), this is still going into Canada where the game is the country's national past time.  

Bare minimum, I think we can hope the Rangers take at least one of those games.  Me wanting to see more and raise the bar for this team, I'd like to see them take both, preferably in regulation.  Not only show the fans that they can compete on the road, but show the fans, and the league for that matter, "hey, doesn't matter our goalie is gone.  We are here to stay." 

There's other things that we can note as positives.  Oliver Bjorkstrand netted himself a couple goals the other night against the Ducks for some depth scoring, Fox is still putting up points (10) despite not having a goal himself.  We can also hope that the team got inspired seeing their Arenamates, the New York Knicks, raise a championship banner the other night (Sullivan certainly hopes so), but there's still a lot of season left. 

Will Lafrenière and the youngsters continue to make more strides?  Will Garand keep holding his own in net.  Will Dorofeyev finally get his scoring touch?  More importantly, will the Rangers answer the bell these next two games away from New York City?  I'll check in with you next week.

Also, as a side note: win for Dugey. 

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