The Rangers dropped their fifth straight game Tuesday, falling 3-2 to the Coyotes in overtime. New York rallied from 1-0 and 2-1 deficits to tie the contest in goals by Tony DeAngelo. The Blueshirts never possessed the puck in overtime, losing when Christian Dvorak beat Alexandar Georgiev, who was brilliant throughout the game, wide side with a shot off the post and crossbar. The Rangers face the streaking Sabres on Thursday at MSG.
Game recap:
David Quinn Post-game:
Lines:
A few thoughts:
1)
Kaapo Kaako - within the loss was Quinn giving Kakko just 9:51 in ice time. When asked by Vince Mercogliano after the game why Kakko saw more than five minutes less ice time that Kaako averaged (15:21) the first six games of the season, the coach simply said, "No. Just the flow of the game."
In comments made a few days ago to Finland's East Side Media, which were translated by Steven Voogel of foreverblueshirts.com, the No. 2 overall pick in this year's NHL Draft was quoted as saying, "Hockey isn’t very much fun for me right now. Things haven’t been working out and sometimes I feel like I could be on the ice a bit more. It would be cool to get a chance on the first line at some point." He went on to say, “I don’t want to hear any talk about how I’m the youngest guy and I need to be given time to get used to the (style of play). I want to be the guy who scores goals and wins games right away.”
Those comments are one of frustration from a player who wants to be on the ice with a chance to score. I get what Quinn is doing. He doesn’t want any player “cheating” the game, as he likes to say. Quinn wants a three zone player and feels that he needs to teach Kakko that lesson now while he is young so it’s indoctrinated and incorporated in his game. However associated with that has to be providing the kid some freedom and the ability to use his talent. That skill level does nothing from the bench, especially late in a game when trailing by a goal or a marker could win the game.
Quinn, as seen from Kakko’s comments, needs to be careful not to lose the player. The term fragile has been heavily used with this team lately. I think we all believe they are on the verge of a major collapse of a few more losses in a row occur and the schedule doesn’t provide the team any favors. New York will be an underdog the next four games - Buffalo, Boston, Tampa and Nashville - and in danger of having the season implode by the first week of November. If that occurs, and I am not advocating for this, a type of coaching change could be made, especially if progress isn’t been shown. I still think Quinn is the right coach for this team but I also get the clarion call for change, especially when we all see the second overall pick sitting and Andersson getting misused after a strong training camp and preseason.
Quinn on what he wants to see from his players:
"You can talk all you want about systems and structure," he said. "If you’re not skating, if you’re not moving your feet and playing with an urgency and playing with a pace, you can’t play this game and be successful. You just can’t do it. This game is simple, but it’s hard. We’re just not doing the basics of what you’re going to need to do to have success. Sometimes we do it; more often we don’t right now. You can feel it — we’re in a little bit of a rut."
As Mercogliano noted, Quinn basically stopped playing Kakko, Brendan Lemieux, Lias Andersson and Greg McKegg at the end of the game. Lemieux finished with 12:03 time on ice, while the other three were each under 10:00. He explained that with the score tied 2-2 late in the game, "We just went for three lines." But he was basically using eight players to fill those two lines — Artemi Panarin, Mika Zibanejad, Jesper Fast, Brett Howden, Chris Kreider, Pavel Buchnevich, Ryan Strome and Brendan Smith — while rotating Kreider and Fast on the first and second lines.
He swapped Lemieux off the third line in favor of Smith, explaining, "I thought Lemieux had a tough night. Smitty has been consistent with his effort and his energy. We ended up taking a penalty cause Lemieux ended up turning it over, and he’s played well for us… but I just thought it was one of those nights when he didn’t have it." On the first goal against, Lemieux failed to pick up Christian Fischer and John one marked Lawson Crouse, leading to the tally. Smith, despite many not being happy that he is seeing as much ice time as he has been receiving, has actually played fairly well and given Quinn what he wants. That can’t be said for many others, which is why the lineups and combinations have looked as they have.
But when you combine Kaako sitting and Andersson not being rewarded for his string training camp and preseason, you can understand why the fan base is up in arms. Quinn is trying to mold a team and teach good habits. But as others have pointed out, besides ADA, whose game has grown in the past year plus? It’s that lack of tangible and evidenced growth - despite the possible future gains - that also puts Quinn in the cross hairs from many.
5v5 TOI:
2)
Chris Kreider on team's struggles:
"It’s difficult," Kreider said. "There are times when you can get a little bit of momentum from the penalty kill, but when you’re taking two or three penalties in the first period like we have the last couple games, certain guys are getting a lot of ice time early and certain guys aren’t getting a lot of ice time. That’s kind of the way it shakes out, but it’s hard for your team to get in the game and get in a rhythm. That’s a big part of it."
"It’s something we talked about before the game, too, but just didn’t execute it," Kreider said of the slow start. "We need to communicate more. We need to help each other out. Teams forecheck hard, teams come hard, and if you’re not able to get out of your own zone in the first five to 10 seconds, you’re going to spend a while in your own zone. It just comes down to giving each other more information, and that comes with experience and chemistry and time. But we’ve got to start doing it sooner rather than later."
After a while, the words become white noise. We are rapidly approaching that stage because it’s become lather, rinse, repeat. While Kreider isn’t making excuses, his explanations could be perceived as such. If that came from Zib or Panarin, they might be viewed differently. But from a player who despite being viewed as a leader has just four goals in his last 34 games, they start to fall on deaf ears. Play though the issues, find a way to surmount the difficulties and win.
3)
Second line center - no one has assumed a hold of the role. Maybe try Andersson just to se what he can do. If not, Filip Chytil may be up very soon...
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