The Rangers rode the brilliant netminding of Igor Shesterkin and overtime power-play goal by Artemi Panarin to a 2-1 win over the Sabres on Saturday. One positive was the improved focus on defense, save for the last few minutes of regulation. On the flip side, New York's somewhat passive style of play and failure to go North-South consistently in the contest resulted in coach Gerard Gallant using the blender to the lines for the third period. The Blueshirts take on the Penguins today at 4pm on the road. Pittsburgh sits seven points behind New York with the teams slated to meet up three times over the next week.
Game recap:
Lines: (at least to start the game)
Kreider-Zibanejad-Tarasenko
Panarin-Trocheck-Kane
Lafreniere-Chytil-Kakko
Vesey-Goodrow-Motte
Mikkola-Fox
Miller-Trouba
Harpur-Schneider
A few thoughts:
1) As noted above, the
blender was out. Gallant has spoken about trying to keep the lines together, but he saw enough - or not enough of what he wanted to see - and swapped the combinations in the third. The team struggled to create offense throughout the contest, going too much East-West rather than straight ahead and dumping the puck, prompting the change,
Panarin moved up to the left wing of Mika Zibanejad and Vladimir Tarasenko, while Chris Kreider was bumped to the left of Vincent Trocheck and Kaapo Kakko, which could be a decent line on the walls and on the forecheck. Patrick Kane, who scored a lucky goal off Owen Power's right skate, his second straight with a tally, then slotted into the right-wing spot of Alexis Lafreniere and Filip Chytil, as the Kid Line has gone stale, as I noted in the last few blogs.
The fourth unit of Jimmy Vesey, Barclay Goodrow and Tyler Motte, which was one of the few lines that could hold the zone throughout the game, remained intact. Gallant post-game below didn't indicate if these trios will remain together to start today's game. Even if not, if the team is failing to generate enough offense or doesn't have the right focus on defense, the blender will be out. With Motte back in the lineup, Jonny Brodzinski, who was promoted as an emergency call up, was sent back down this am.
On the line changes, “I’m going to start changing the lines every period now, trust me. I’ve done it for a year and a half and we’ve had a pretty good team and I’m tired of….I’m going to do what is working. It worked tonight and maybe we’ll try it again tomorrow, we’ll see.”
Did you like what you saw when you changed the lines, “for the most part, yea. In the third it was a lot better until the last minute and a half when they had about four great chances, but overall I thought it was a little bit better.”
2)
Defense - the team still has issues with handling speed in general but especially through the neutral zone. In addition, their inability to reset and recover their structure once they are somewhat settled in their own zone is very apparent. Several of the high-danger chances surrendered have come after they should be in a better defensive position.
Ryan Lindgren, who is close to returning but sat out yesterday, will help settle down the D when is back in the lineup. But his return won't be enough to fix the ills that ail this squad. The good news is that yesterday was a better defensive game, as they limited Buffalo to only one goal on 12 high-danger scoring chances, according to Natural Stat Trick. But at least a few of those HDCF came on a late flurry in the final minutes of regulation that could have proven disastrous. In general, fixing the D needs to be priority one, as the belief/expectation is that the offense will find its way based on the talent now there.
Overall the Rangers were, again, not at their best for a lot of this one. They struggled defensively, they went really long stretches without creating much offense, but Igor Shesterkin looked like himself and the jumbled lines in the third period got some offense, and some poor defense, going.
3)
Shesterkin was brilliant throughout the contest. His biggest and best save of the 32 he made yesterday might have been on Dylan Cozens with 40 seconds left. The past two games, Igor has looked like the goalie we saw most of last season. If that level of play continues moving forward, the Rangers are a dangerous team, despite the defensive warts.
New York Rangers Blogger • 
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