Easy Rangers lineup changes to help on-ice performance

The Rangers haven’t really been playing well of late, with many poor process performances since around December 4. It hasn’t been all bad, but it definitely wasn’t the solid process games we saw in November. This predates the Covid issues across the league, so the process seeds were there. We talk about big changes to fill holes, but there are easy Rangers lineup changes to be made that can improve the team in the short term.

Morgan Barron for Greg McKegg

There are two very quick and easy Rangers lineup changes Gerard Gallant can make, and quite frankly, should make, to improve the Rangers immediately. The first is subbing Morgan Barron in for Greg McKegg. All due respect to McKegg, he’s simply not cutting it. The fourth line has been caved in for a while now, and it is coinciding with McKegg getting steady 4C time.

Looking at Natural Stat Trick’s Line Tool, Reaves and Rooney, who are the mainstays on the fourth line, perform significantly better without McKegg. They don’t perform all that well –most of the Rangers have pretty poor underlying numbers– but McKegg is a huge drag on them. When we add Barclay Goodrow and Dryden Hunt to the line tool, we get a clearer picture of the optimal fourth line (Goodrow-Rooney-Hunt).

Getting Hunt to the fourth line means a trade, and this post isn’t about outside help. To at least get to a viable fourth line, the answer is, for now, inserting Morgan Barron into the lineup over McKegg. We don’t have supporting numbers for Barron, but at this point he can’t possibly be worse than McKegg. It’s quick and easy, and gets Barron some sheltered minutes, albeit without much talent, to get better acclimated to the NHL.

This is the simplest way to get better production out of the fourth line. There are other changes that can be made which involve line shuffling, but we get into murky waters of changing the middle six, and there are many different variations of that. The frustrating part is not knowing what Filip Chytil is, and that is a key cog in finding the optimal lines. This goes far beyond easy Rangers lineup changes.

But I digress. Barron for McKegg is quick and easy.

Nils Lundkvist for Libor Hajek

Libor Hajek had the best game of his career the other night. Good for him. That doesn’t change the fact hat 9 times out of 10, he’s a complete drag on his defense partner and is a major black hole in the lineup. I wish this wasn’t true, but at this point Hajek is what he is. He will have a good game here and there, but the other games are tremendous drains on the lineup.

Nils Lundkvist, before his unceremonious benching for….reasons?….was playing pretty solid hockey. He and Patrik Nemeth showed significant improvement together. Lundkvist also showed good numbers away from Nemeth, albeit it in limited minutes. So why not make another easy Rangers lineup change and put him back in the lineup?

Zac Jones is likely not going anywhere, the easy answer is just putting him with Lundkvist and letting the pair of rookies play together. Jones has shown steady two way play with some rookie mistakes. It’s such an easy move to make, but the reluctance to shake up the defense pairs is an odd hill to die on. The goal is to dress the best team, and Lundkvist over Hajek is a no-brainer at this point.

The ideal defense pairs are a hot topic, but it’s not that much of a hot take to say that both Jones and Lundkvist have outplayed Hajek, Nemeth, and Jarred Tinordi. If the goal is to play the best players, then this is the way to do it.

The Rangers don’t need to do much to get a better performance out of the entire roster. Covid implications aside, the over reliance on a 4-A center and an AHL defenseman is confusing at best, and reckless at worst. Such simple decisions to make, and the time to do it is now.