The Rangers opened 2023 with a 5-3 road win against the Panthers. New York's veterans played a big role in the victory, including Jaroslav Halak, who started in net. Alexis Lafreniere returned to the lineup after sitting one game as a healthy scratch with a solid effort. The Blueshirts face the Hurricanes - who have won 11 games in a row - on Tuesday at MSG.
Game recap:
A few thoughts:
1) Lines - Lafrreniere was back in the lineup. From zib's post-game comments, you can tell the players are also starting to get frustrated with the myriad of line changes. He highlighted chemistry as a key component of the success the top line had. Maintaining those combinations should be a priority, though I would swap Jimmy Vesey and Julien Gauthier to maximize the line combinations. The so-so performance of the Laf-Chytil-Vesey trio should be enough evidence to make that swap.
Chris Kreider, Mika Zibanejad, Kaapo Kakko
Artemi Panarin, Vincent Trocheck, Vitali Kravtsov
Alexis Lafreniere, Filip Chytil, Jimmy Vesey
Sammy Blais, Barclay Goodrow, Julien Gauthier
2) Lafreniere has a solid game, not to the point where he was the player of the game, but solid. The players showed they were on Laf's side, evidenced by Ben Harpur giving Laf the Broadway Hat. This, to me, showed a united locker room and team. Classy move by Harpur.
3) Overall, I thought the Rangers played a good game. A few really bad turnovers, including one by Jacob Trouba on a pass from the D to neutral zone and another by Artmei Panarin in his own zone. But Halak came up big when needed to make saves on each of those plays, preserving the lead and enable the victory.
The victory though was far from perfect, In addition to the turnovers mentioned, as Larry Brooks noted, New York was outshot 27-12 over the final two periods while crashing the crease with abandon. NaturalStatTrick credited Florida with a 22-13 edge in scoring chances, which seemed slightly high while watching the game. Three times the Blueshirts took two-goal leads bridging the second and third periods. Three times the Panthers cut the leads in half within 3:27, 3:18 and 1:15, respectively, to make the game a little bit more difficult to nail down than it probably should have been. If not for Halak, the end result and mindset post-game might have been vastly different
Kaapo Kakko was strong on the wall and behind the net, leading to his two assists. His performance continues a recent string of solid play wby the winger. The top line needs to be left alone. Vincent Trocheck had the goal of the game, hustling to break up a shorthanded breakaway chance, then darting down the ice into open space to convert a beautiful feed by Chris Kreider. He traveled 404 feet on the play per the MSG broadcast yesterday.
4) Really good read by Vince Mercogliano on the prospects in the AHL and the questions/issues New York has had with developing impact players. Mercogliano poses the right questions in the column, answering them remains up to the organization. The responses and adjustments made based on the analysis required to be performed hopefully lead to better end results.
Developing forward prospects has been a bumpy road for the #NYR for as long as many of us can remember. What are some of the lessons that can be learned from those missteps?
That came up on my recent trip to Hartford + updates on many current prospects https://t.co/jzJGV20P2G
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