It’s all part of the plan.
Back in the offseason I spoke frequently about the Rangers need to acquire players who fit their team template. The three main ingredients needed to restock the Rangers were roster balance, skating, and effort. As the deadline approaches, the Rangers should stick to those three ingredients when evaluating their own team and what’s available on the marketplace.
As for Tortorella, you may not like his personality and you may disagree with his coaching systems and strategies, but whether he stays or goes (I vote he stays!), the foundation he’s laid for this roster should and likely will remain intact. With that said, let’s look at few pieces and see where upgrades could potentially be made.
Marian Gaborik
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The Rangers succeeded last year because they executed. They followed the system, they executed and they won. Many are looking at the coaching staff for the three game slide, but in reality it’s about execution from the players.
It’s been widely known that coach Tortorella uses a 2-1-2 forecheck, which is not a defensive system. It’s a bit of a misnomer, stating that Torts does play defense first. Many assume that defense first means trap, but our system is the exact opposite. The 2-1-2 means aggressive forechecking to create turnovers. It means attacking, not sitting back. I am not sure how attacking translates to stifling players ability to produce offense, as some angry fans have suggested.
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The Rangers have hit a speed bump in their season, dropping three straight in ugly fashion to the Sabres, Jets, and Penguins. While losing to the Penguins is par for the course for the Eastern Conference, the Rangers had four points slip through their fingers against Winnipeg and Buffalo. While everyone is hellbent on blaming the coach, Marian Gaborik, Brad Richards, Glen Sather, etc, let’s look at the real reason why the Rangers have hit this skid.
We have two goal breakdowns to look through from these games (we could not write one for Winnipeg, although I do remember how most of the goals were scored), and there’s a common trend in the goals the team surrenders. The Rangers are simply not fundamentally sound, and not winning the battles in the dirty areas. Those dirty areas are the boards and the front of the net.
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Over the past few seasons, the Rangers have been relatively atrocious on face offs, but have always shown improvement. This year, all that improvement is coming to fruition. Through 25 games this season, the Rangers are in the top-ten (8th) in face off percentage, winning 51.4% of their draws. They are well behind the top four teams (Boston – 57%, Minnesota – 53.3%, San Jose – 53.2%, Phoenix – 53.1%), but a few strong games in the circle can move them all the way to fifth (Pittsburgh – 52.0%).
How much of an improvement is this? Just last season, the Rangers were 18th in the league in face offs, winning a little less than 50% of their draws. It’s worth noting that NHL.com rounds up, as the Rangers are noted to be at 50% on the site, but in reality were 2286-2291 on draws. In 2010-2011, the Rangers were 25th in the league in the circle, winning just 47.7% of their draws. In two years, the Rangers raised their success rate by 4%. That’s roughly 300 more face off wins per year, or 4 extra wins per game.
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- Rick Nash’s first 8 goals of the season came in the 3rd period. The only other player to do that: Arron Asham as a member of the Islanders in 2003-2004.
- The Ottawa Senators have beaten the Rangers 6 times in a row at Madison Square Garden. New York is 1-1-12 in its last 14 home games against the Senators.
- The Rangers went 10-2-2 in the second games of back-to-backs last season. They are 0-3-0 in those situations this year. (Via @RothmanHockey)
- The Blueshirts have scored power play goals in 5 of their last 6 games. The Rangers are 6 for their last 19 on the power play and 9 for their last 38.
- New York is 8-2-2 when scoring a power play goal this year.
- The Blueshirts are 8-3-1 when they don’t give up a power play goal this year. (Via @RothmanHockey)
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One of the biggest weaknesses the Rangers organization has faced the last several seasons has been a mediocre power play. Not since the 2009-10 season have the Rangers finished in the top half of the league in PP conversions. This season in particular, the Rangers power play was a disaster early on. With that said, there was quite a bit of turnover in the offseason, a truncated training camp and plenty of injuries. Just when the Rangers were looking to turn it around in mid-February, Rick Nash went down with an injury and missed four games.
Once Nash returned, not only have the Rangers been playing great 5-on-5 hockey, but the power play has improved as well. As Dave mentioned yesterday, prior to the Rangers win streak, they were sitting dead-last in the NHL with an 8% power play. Currently they are at 15.8% overall (22nd in the NHL), 17.6% at home (20th in the NHL) and have doubled their efficiency over the past seven games. As Dave reported, their 27% efficiency rate over this streak is good for second in the NHL.
But can all of that be attributed just to Rick Nash’s return? Here’s what I’ve noticed.
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Progression to the mean is fun.
Brad Richards is struggling this season. Everyone has seen it, everyone has complained about it, and everyone is waiting for him to rebound. What generally goes unnoticed is that Ricahrds’ shooting percentage is an astonishing low 4.5%. That’s less than most defensemen. Richards has a career average of about 9%, so his shooting percentage right now is half of what it should be.
We spoke about shooting percentages at the end of January and highlighted Carl Hagelin (at that point goalless) and Taylor Pyatt (at that point shooting at 43%). Both have since progressed and regressed to their career averages, and the same theory is going to apply to Richards here. His career worst shooting percentage was in 2002-2003 when he shot at 6%, which is still above his current pace.
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- Marc Staal has 2 goals and 9 assists in 20 games this season. Staal had 2 goals and 3 assists in 46 games last year after he returned to the lineup from a concussion.
- Michael St. Croix ranks 9th in the WHL with 83 points (33 goals, 50 assists) in 66 games. Last year, St. Croix finished 8th in the league with 45 goals and 60 assists in 72 games.
- 6 of Carl Hagelin’s 7 goals this season have come while playing with Rick Nash.
- In case you were wondering, Nash’s 12 shots on Thursday were 7 shy of the NHL record held by Ray Bourque in a game against Ron Tugnutt and the Quebec Nordiques in 1991. Bourque scored on his 14th shot of that game. The last Ranger to have 12 shots in a game was Brendan Shanahan against the Islanders in 2008. Read more »
I know there is a small, but vocal contingent of the blogosphere that will trash Tortorella when the team isn’t performing well and leave him alone when the team wins. Some people just look at the scoreboard and develop a strong opinion about the man and that’s all there is to it. Part of being a sports fan I suppose. However, what we try to do on this site is dig a little deeper.
When you peel back the onion a bit, one of the things I have come to appreciate about Tortorella are the less publicized tactics he uses to help win hockey games. Last season he changed up the Rangers neutral zone forecheck on the penalty kill, which aimed to create short-handed chances. This year he’s developed a new breakout designed to beat neutral zone traps.
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Depth has been a discussion point around here since before the lockout, to the point where we have too many posts to link to when we bring it up again. Despite an injury to Arron Asham, the Rangers have more useful depth this year than they have had in years past. They have a fourth line capable of eating 10-12 minutes of ice time per game when healthy, with some of that coming on the penalty kill. Depth is critical for a team like the Rangers, who will need all four lines to make a deep Cup run.
Despite all this, the Rangers fourth line barely saw seven minutes of ice time each. Eliminating Stu Bickel from the equation, as he’s only in because Asham is out, it makes you wonder why there is no trust from the coaching staff. Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a post bashing anyone –as you all know, we love Torts here and aren’t afraid to show it– but it’s still worth asking why these guys don’t get ice time.
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