Oscar Lindberg deserves to play

Lindberg

Oscar Lindberg deserves to play. This sounds like an obvious statement, because it a way it is, but it needs to be said plainly. The Rangers’ forward depth is their strength this season, and heading into this playoff run the team needs to put its best possible lineup out there in order to maximize their odds of winning a Cup.

Alain Vigneault’s continuous scratching of the versatile Swede, who started off the season on something of a scoring streak before predictably cooling off, remains perplexing in its logic. Just a few weeks ago he was clicking well with the newly acquired Eric Staal, and yet these days he remains in the press box while Tanner Glass still sees time on the ice. The scrappy Lindberg even brings an element of the grit and toughness that Glass is known for, without all of the useless hits and defensively irresponsible play. Still this isn’t enough for Alain Vigneault.

It’s also important that we dispense with the notion that’s often thrown around in these sorts of discussions – that the fourth line in general, and Tanner Glass in particular, is playing better. This notion doesn’t seem to jive with the evidence we have available to us; Glass, Stalberg, and Moore have a CF% of 44.79% in 142.77 minutes on ice together, and Glass’ individual rolling averages for both Corsi and PDO can be seen below.

Courtesy of corsica.hockey

Courtesy of corsica.hockey

What this demonstrates is that while Glass is improving slightly he’s still around a 40% possession player, with his overall “improvement” really being a perception due to a high on ice shooting percentage and goaltending. PDO is masking his continually subpar performance in a big way, and although that PDO is beginning to come down it’s still well above 100.

Courtesy of corsica.hockey

For comparison I’ve also included Oscar Lindberg’s 10-game rolling average CF%. Here we can see that while he’s definitely struggled since around mid-February he began to pick up his game around the end of the month and the beginning of March. We would have otherwise seen the results of this upswing but for the fact that he’s suddenly in AV’s doghouse with seemingly no end in sight. Although AV has hinted that Lindberg may get some time soon we’ve yet to see it, and even then there’s a decent likelihood that Glass won’t be the one to sit, despite Glass posting a CF% of 43.5 over his last 10 games. All of this amounts to AV willingly playing a suboptimal lineup as we head into the playoffs.

The Rangers’ forward depth is their main strength this season, and Oscar Lindberg, versatile and well rounded, is a part of that. To continuously bench him while Tanner Glass remains in the lineup despite abysmal possession numbers that are dragging down otherwise competent linemates in Dom Moore and Viktor Stalberg is a coaching decision that is simply indefensible. Whatever Glass brings to the lineup can be replaced – every player on the team is capable of throwing big hits or getting into fights. What Glass can’t do evidently is move the puck out of his own end and generate shots for the Rangers. For that, you might want to play Oscar Lindberg