New Rangers lines: Adam Edstrom to 4RW; New powerplay units

Peter Laviolette put together some new Rangers lines today, or at least a new line, with the recently recalled Adam Edstrom skating at 4RW in place of Tyler Pitlick. Edstrom was most likely going to be the call up in January, but he was hurt in late December and just returned to Hartford’s lineup last night. He played last night and was recalled immediately following the game. Clearly they liked what they saw in his last call up.

It shouldn’t be much of a surprise that Pitlick came out of the lineup, since we know Barclay Goodrow isn’t going anywhere yet.

The big shake up was on the powerplay, where Peter Laviolette but the units in a blender. Vincent Trocheck and Artemi Panarin were shifted off the usual PP1 spot to a new unit with Kaapo Kakko, Alexis Lafreniere, and Erik Gustafsson. Replacing Trocheck and Panarin were, oddly, Jonny Brodzinski and Blake Wheeler.

It’s worth noting that we should expect a 50/50 TOI split with these two units, so don’t get too upset over the labels of PP1/PP2. It’s also worth noting that these powerplay units are also the 5v5 lines with Kreider-Zibanejad-Wheeler and Panarin-Trocheck-Lafreniere. Sometimes a change is needed, if just to send a jolt to the lineup.