henrik lundqvist

The Rangers finally got a win, shutting out the Habs by a score of 2-0 at MSG. Roster decisions led to questions at puck drop, and in game deployment raised even more concerns. While the Rangers didn’t really control possession, they tightened up their defensive zone coverage and didn’t allow as many cross-ice passes for high quality chances against.

I spent a lot of time looking at defensive zone coverage during this game, and there don’t seem to be any changes with Lindy Ruff on board, as expected. The problem has been execution, with the same issues of chasing to the blue line and the transition from overload to man when the puck is at the goal line. With so many new faces, expect that to be a problem this month.

On to the goals.

Rangers 1, Habs 0

The Rangers had a lot of luck in the first period. The Habs had a pair of goals disallowed, and then the Rangers got one off a lucky bounce. After a face-off win, Brady Skjei took the puck down the boards and fired it to Michael Grabner in the slot. The puck bounced off a defenseman and by Carey Price. This play doesn’t happen without the face-off win and without Grabner knowing to cut to the net.

Rangers 2, Habs 0

https://twitter.com/hayyyshayyy/status/917198801282174976

Pavel Buchnevich did a good job to force the turnover behind the net on the dump in. Chris Kreider got the puck back to him behind while Mika Zibanejad was left all alone in front. Carey Price didn’t see where puck was going, and Buch fed ZBad perfectly for the goal.

Score Adjusted Corsi


The Rangers did not do a good job of controlling play last night. The Habs generated a lot of attempts. From the eye test, it looked like the Rangers, especially in the third, went back to flipping the puck out of the defensive zone and right back to the opposition. It was a problem last year, and was a problem last night.

Scoring Chances

For the Rangers, it’s all about limiting chances against, specifically Royal Road chances. They’ve been crushed by their inability to stop the cross-ice pass in the defensive zone. Last night was different, and they did a much better job at limiting those chances.

With the win, Alain Vigneault will probably feel vindicated for his questionable roster decisions and deployment.  He will probably use this as a reason to dress 11 forwards and 7 defensemen again for the next game. Winning doesn’t mean you played well, and losing doesn’t mean you played poorly. AV is still, for some reason, learning this.

That said, the Rangers did a better job of clamping down in the defensive zone, as mentioned above. If there is one positive to take from the win, it’s that. To be perfectly honest, there were more positives from the loss against Colorado than the shutout last night, as backwards as that sounds. But a win is a win. If that’s the mental hurdle they needed to get past, then let’s hope they build on it and continue to win while implementing better process.

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