When the Rangers acquired Ryan Lindgren in the Rick Nash trade, he was viewed as a player who could provide a physical presence to the blue line, but not necessarily add much offensive value. He had a decent season last year with Hartford, but wasn’t exactly showing that he was destined for great things in the NHL.
This year things are different. After just nine games in Hartford, Lindgren was recalled to the Rangers where he’s been able to stick. Lindgren was called up with Filip Chytil on October 28, and even then was a bit of an afterthought because the blue line was pretty full. In his 28 games since the recall, Lindgren has scored his first NHL goal and added another 7 assists.
With how we’ve looked at Jacob Trouba and Brady Skjei, it’s important to look at how Lindgren is progressing and developing. He had a rough start to say the least, to the point where many were wondering how long he’d stay in New York. But lately, he’s been trending up, way up.
Much like most of the Rangers, Lindgren had a rough November from an xGF% perspective. He was well below team average and really struggling. He had improved in other areas, most notably he was significantly better on his skates, but adjusting to the NHL life on a bad team playing even worse had a negative impact on his results. The bottom of the bottom was the game on 12/10, when the Rangers lost 3-1 to LA.
After that, he’s been on the way up. I think it is no coincidence that his sharp rise has come almost exactly when Libor Hajek went down with his knee injury on 12/6 in Columbus. This is when David Quinn was forced to shake up the pairings and put Lindgren with Adam Fox, a pairing that has, for the most part, worked in the short term. That’s also Fox trending up in the short term.
It is worth noting that while Lindgren/Fox is working, it’s not exactly a stellar pairing. They are on the wrong side of generating offense, which is odd for Fox, but they are doing a good job limiting quality attempts. Something else to consider is how much better Fox has been away from Lindgren. It’s quite alarming actually:
- Lindgren/Fox xGF% when together: 43.49%
- Lindgren xGF% without Fox: 38.72%
- Fox xGF% without Lindgren: 60.27%
- xGA/60 as a pair: 2.52
- Lindgren xGA/60 for season: 2.68
- Fox xGA/60 for season: 2.42
Fox is clearly the driver here, but it is also worth noting that these are season long numbers. On the whole, Fox is clearly king here, especially noted by the recent struggle for Lindgren to produce points (only one assist in 9 games and two assists in his last 15 games), and that is going to have an impact on his NHL future.
This post is a point in time post – something that we can reference at the end of the season to see how Lindgren has truly progressed. There is cause for optimism as Lindgren has shown significant improvement over the past month, but again that is a small sample size. At the very least, Lindgren’s recent play has earned him a continued spot in the lineup when Hajek gets healthy.
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