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Game 63: NYR 2 CLM 1, Raanta the Difference in Victory in E Staal's Debut

March 1, 2016, 8:06 AM ET [217 Comments]
Jan Levine
New York Rangers Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT
The Rangers weren't great Monday but did just enough to win 2-1 over Columbus. Excellent goaltending by Antti Raanta coupled with goals by Mats Zuccarello and Derek Stepan (shorthanded) gave the Blueshirts the victory. With upcoming back-to-back road games against Washington and Pittsburgh followed by a home contest Sunday against the Islanders, winning last night was imperative and we will get a real good sense as to where this team is in the next three games.

Columbus may have outplayed New York but Raanta was the difference. I don't believe any of us could have predicted how well he would play against Toronto and last night versus Columbus after watching his struggles in the game against LA. But credit goes to him and goaltending coach Benoit Allaire, who clearly is the goalie whisperer, for getting Raanta back on track. Having a netminder that can be plugged in when needed to give Henrik Lundqvist a rest provides coach Alain Vigneault a nice safety net as he tries to keep Hank fresh down the stretch.

New York was without both Rick Nash (bone bruise on left leg) and Jesper Fast (flu) forcing Dylan McIlrath to play on the fourth line. Many of us feel Dan Boyle might be better suited for that role but McIlrath was given the chance to move up yesterday and as we saw, that change left a bit to be desired. Hard to criticize McIlrath because playing forward is not in his comfort zone and hopefully this ends up just being a one-time occurrence.

With McIlrath on the fourth line, Eric Staal began the game centering the third line, moving Kevin Hayes to wing. Staal was moved to wing beginning the third, which is where I think he is best suited to play on this team. There was a ton of late comments and conversation on the blog on how crazy it is to move Staal in order to keep Hayes at wing. There's a few reasons why I and others suggested this. First, Staal has played wing in the Olympics, so the move is something he has done on the last. Second, Hayes has shown he is markedly better at center, as he has a tendency to get lost at wing. Third, when Nash returns, moving Staal to wing enables the top two lines to be very strong and allows Fast to slide down to the third or fourth line, strengthening the bottom sox. Fourth, Staal's ability to play wing gives AV options. He could play Staal with Stepan and Nash or play Staal on a wing with Brassard and Zucc, though I would keep Miller there. In addition, AV might shift Kreider to the third line with Hayes and Oscar Lindberg or Viktor Stalberg, so as you see there are lots of combinations. Staal at wing also places another strong face off man on the ice, especially late in games. So playing Staal is not a slight to him but in fact recognizing just how valuable he is and how by doing so, it improves the team.

For one game at least, the criticism of how AV deploys Keith Yandle died down a bit. AV paired Yandle with Kevin Klein, which means he saw second unit minutes. As such, Yandle had four more minutes than Marc Staal, who was pretty good last night, Boyle. Of course, it wasn't a perfect night, as Dan Girardi had a horrible turnover leading to Cam Atkinson's goal and the Rangers had to hold on for dear life late, thanks to two saves by Raanta and an Atkinson shot that went in the net just after the final buzzer. But overall, the defensive pairings are what we should see moving forward, with the expectation that complaints will continue to be raised on pairing Girardi with Ryan McDonagh.

Nineteen game to go. Win these three games and take a stranglehold of second play in the division. All in!!!
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