The Rangers, off a bad loss this the Jets, face the Sharks at home tonight. Barclay Goodrow gets his first chance to extract some revenge on his former team and we all know he will be highly motivated given the circumstances around his departure. Mika Zibanejad opened up on his mental state dealing with his recent struggles and the lines were slightly shifted again.
Projected lines tonight:
Panarin - Trocheck - Laf
Kreider - Zib - Smith
Cuylle - Chytil - Kakko
Edström - Carrick - Vesey
Miller - Fox
Lindgren - Trouba
Jones - Schneider
The top-six is back to how the season started. No surprise that a chance would be forthcoming given how the modifications last week have worked out. The third and fourth lines should remain the same, which is why the only tweaks that could be made are to the top-six. Only so many tweaks exist given the constitution and make up there, so once again, we are back to what we saw previously.
Up the ice time of the third line to close to the Panarin line and make the Zib trio the third unit. That likely makes the most sense and rewards the unit that is playing well and deserves more time on ice. Maybe that change will unlock Zib and Chris Kreider, but consider me skeptical.
New York’s defense has been brutal. Coach Peter Laviolette has made changes here, restoring the
K’Andre Miller-Adam Fox pairing. That duo showed some signs of being effective, and given how poorly Miller has played when separated from Fox, bringing those two back together makes sense.
Zac Jones and Braden Schneider had been the Rangers best and most consistent defensive pairing. As such, I can understand why they remain as a unit. What that means though is that if Miller and Fox is your other pair, then that leaves Ryan Lindgren and Jacob Trouba together. The lack of foot speed for each is apparent, likely exacerbated when together. I guess the hope has to be that each blueliner will help paper over and cover the other’s deficiencies, but consider me skeptical.
Victor Mancini was sent down Wednesday with Chad Ruhwedel called up. Mancini needs to play and having him sit consistently in the press box makes little sense. Let him play major minutes and regain his confidence, pacing the way for a future promotion. If Lindgren continues to struggle, then we might see Ruhwedel.
Zib opened up to Vince Mercogliano and the team’s beat writers about his struggles. As you will see from the comments, he is clearly searching for an answer with his difficulties heavily weighing on him. His confidence is gone. I have said before, confidence begets confidence and doubt begets doubt, even and especially for elite athletes. Zibanejad is trying to find a way out of quicksand, and each move he makes seems to sink him further and further down.
If he can somehow string together several positive moments in a row, that would go a long way to possibly breaking the negative cycle. But that would require a contest where no glaring errors or mistakes happen, so he can rebuild that kind of muscle memory. For New York to win, they do need an effective Mika. He did leave Tuesday’s game briefly, but says he is okay. Plus there is some speculation he has been dealing with an injury. But until news of such breaks, that becomes a convenient excuse. Let’s see if he can positively turn the page tonight.
“It's the hardest thing ever," Zibanejad said following Wednesday's practice at the MSG Training Center. "I can't explain it. I can always talk. I can always answer your guys' questions to the best of my abilities to explain it. I will never be able to fully explain what it is when you're in the situation."
"You have the mantras," he said. "You have the sayings to yourself. ‘Forget about the mistake, just next action, next game, next shift.’ It's harder than it sounds. But if I'm going to be like, ‘Oh, this is so tough,’ then it's not going to help me."
"I can bury myself in negativity and make it even worse, or try to learn from it and take the positives that were in the game," Zibanejad said. "My job is to go out there and play a good game (Thursday). Whether I have a great game the game before or a bad game, it doesn't change. You're expecting me – and I'm expecting myself – to play (well) every night. It's not going to happen every night, even as much as I want to, but just play hard and have a short memory."
"I feel like when I'm out there, they've been scoring on everything," said an exasperated Zibanejad. "That's not an excuse. It's just the way it goes. Obviously, there's been a couple now in the past few weeks, but just try to focus on what I can control – and what I can control is my mindset and how I look at things."
"In hockey, you always get a chance to redeem yourself or keep it going when things are going good," Zibanejad said. "I’m not happy about (Tuesday). I’m not happy about the loss, but if I'm gonna think about it too much, then I don't think you're going to see a very good player (Thursday)."
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