Minor adjustments by Alain Vigneault can help the Rangers blue line

Clendening (Photo: Rangers)

We’re a few games into the season at this point, and it’s plain to see what the Rangers’ strengths are as a team. Most of this stems from the team’s deep forward corps – the team is fast and has a scoring touch on each of their four lines. What’s also becoming increasingly clear however is the Rangers’ weakness: the defense. While this may seem like an obvious point to make, it’s important to go further and parse out exactly what the issues are in order to better understand how to address them.

Let’s start with what even the most stalwart apologists for the Rangers defense would acknowledge: aside from Ryan McDonagh, this is not a defensive group that moves the puck well. The forwards on the team mostly make up for them, as they’re all quite fast and each line has someone capable of making quick passes and carry-ins on it, but the start of the breakout needs work.

Just last night against the Bruins the Rangers struggled on the breakout due to the Bruins neutral zone pressure – they were forced to move the puck in their own end and simply couldn’t. This has to change if the forwards are going to be able to get the puck into the offensive zone and create scoring chances, and can at least begin to be addressed relatively easily.

The answer, as unfortunately is sometimes the case with Alain Vigneault, is sitting in the press box. Adam Clendening has proven so far to be the Rangers’ most adept defenseman at making solid breakout passes and skating the puck north out of the defensive zone. Putting him in the lineup instead of Nick Holden, who regularly coughs up the puck to the opposition or simply makes unprofitable passes, would make a world of difference in terms of helping the Rangers’ forward corps getting what they need to go to work.

And this is by no means my way of saying that I dislike anyone on the roster. It’s based on pure facts:

Ignoring the little quip about Girardi in this tweet, Clendening is second on the team in managing controlled zone entries (carrying or passing the puck into the offensive zone, instead of dump and chase). It’s just pure facts, done by people who track these plays regularly.

My bad Pat! – Dave

What’s even more unfortunate however is that the Blueshirts’ blue line is struggling in its own end defensively. The team’s lack of quickness defensively is hurting them when strong, speedy players come down the wings and exploit the less than mobile defenders the Rangers deploy. What would be helpful here would be a systems adjustment –switching from the hybrid overload/man scheme currently used to a full zone, for starters– to take some of the pressure off the Rangers’ aging defensemen and perhaps some zone start adjustments. Playing a less skating intensive system would do wonders for Dan Girardi, as would deploying him in offensive zone starts against weaker competition.

All of this assumes things are going relatively smoothly for the Rangers’ blue line. But as we saw in the first 30 minutes against the Bruins, when opponents are applying pressure, they cough up the puck regularly. Discipline and puck support then become crucial, as does pass selection in helping to find holes in opponents’ NZ schemes. This is easier said than done of course, and a solution might not always be viable with this set of defensive personnel.

Which brings us to the most obvious big picture fix for the Rangers blue line: a trade. The Rangers desperately need a top-four defenseman, whether it’s Jacob Trouba, Dougie Hamilton, or whoever else may be on the market. A real, viable partner for Ryan McDonagh would mean the top pairing could play big minutes in the defensive zone and help transition the team to offense at the most difficult of moments. That leaves depth guys like Clendening or Brady Skjei to make things work further down the pairings.

If done right the Rangers can tune up this blue line and help even out the team’s lineup. As it stands right now, the Rangers have a huge disparity between their forward corps and their defensive group, somewhere in the ballpark of Dallas these past few years. As we’ve seen with the Stars, it’s not exactly a viable path to a Cup.

It would behoove the Rangers to at least make some minor fixes to their blue line, starting with Clendening and perhaps going so far as to change the team’s whole defensive strategy before we get too far along in the season. If this team really does fancy itself a contender, addressing the defense is going to be of the essence sooner, rather than later.