Photo Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke

Photo Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke

After an incredible run to start the season, the Rangers have crashed back down to Earth, and hard. They are 2-5-1 over their last eight games. The goaltending has still been solid, but not playing to the .960 SV%, and the even strength scoring has dried up. Those paying attention to the numbers early on knew this was coming, so I’m not all that surprised by this skid.

As noted many times, the Rangers were riding ridiculously high and unsustainable shooting and goaltending. It wasn’t even just in the numbers, just check out the gif archive for Henrik Lundqvist at nyrgifs. Look at the types of saves he had to make. That wasn’t sustainable. The play around him was crumbling, and he almost single-handedly guided the Rangers to the hot start (16-3-2).

But looking at the numbers, you can tell something was off with the process. The 2-5-1 skid started on 11/23 against the Canadiens, right after a 3-0 win over Nashville that they didn’t deserve and sparked this rant from me. Here are the numbers before 11/23 and after 11/23 (all even strength only):

Thru 11/23 Rank After 11/23 Rank
SH% 11.10% 1st 4.40% Last
SV% 96.20% 1st 92.80% 18th
CF% 45.50% 29th 47.50% 20th
SCF% 45.20% Last 47.30% 22nd
Score Adjusted CF% 47.20% 27th 47.60% 21st
Score Adjusted SCF% 45.70% Last 47.40% 22nd

The Rangers were simply riding unsustainable SH%, which should eventually fall to the mid-to-high 7% range, and unsustainable SV%, which should fall to around 93%. Worth noting that the league average SV% is 92% at even strength, but the Lundqvist factor needs to be accounted for.

The reason why a lot of folks were up in arms is the last four categories. The processes of controlling play, getting both quantity and quality attempts, and limiting the opposition’s chances were simply not there. They were not executing. They were skating by on lucky shooting and amazing goaltending.

Now we look at the post 11/23 numbers, and we see a dramatic crash to Earth. The Rangers are dead last in SH% and SV% in that run, which is that PDO crash (PDO consists of SV%+SH%) we warned about.

All this said, the process is improving a bit. The Rangers seem to have woken up over the last three games. It’s their usual “December Wake Up Call” as I’m going to call it. The first four games in December have seen score-adjusted scoring-chance-for-percentages of 49.2% (Isles), 54.8% (Colorado), 50.9% (Ottawa), and 60.1% (Vancouver). What this means is the Rangers kept pace with the Isles –a very good playoff team– and then dominated three inferior clubs.

Carolyn Wilke put together a chart on how the Rangers have fared throughout the season in regards to scoring chances:

Courtesy of Carolyn Wilke

Courtesy of Carolyn Wilke

To summarize the chart, the Rangers allowed way too many scoring chances to start the season (very high on the vertical y-axis). They got better at limiting them as the season went on, but in turn their own scoring chances dropped as well (started on the right of the horizontal x-axis, but moved to the left). However as of 11/29, scoring chances against have remained the same as scoring chances for have increased.

It’s still too soon to tell if this is just a positive blip or a trend in the right direction, but we will know more after this Western Canada trip. The Rangers need to get the process right, and then the results will follow suit. Two dominating showings in Edmonton and Calgary will go a long way to righting the ship.

Share: 

More About: