The President’s Trophy argument is always a funny one, since many seem to think that winning the President’s Trophy is a curse. In reality, it’s simply locking up home ice advantage. The Rangers home ice advantage, assuming they win it in the next 4 games, matters a lot more this season than in prior seasons. This all comes down to coaching.
Coaching has been a theme this season, and it’s mostly due to Peter Laviolette’s steady improvement of the team. Matchups and roles, promised under Gerard Gallant, have finally been delivered under Laviolette. It may not seem like much, but roles do matter, especially in the playoffs.
Think about this in a real world setting. When you go to work, you have a specific job and a role. For the most part, you accomplish your assigned role and tasks. If you’re an IT person and all of a sudden you show up one day and now you’re a finance person, you won’t know what to do unless you’ve had prior experience in a finance role before.
This applies to hockey as well, and why the Rangers home ice advantage matters more this year than in the past. The Mika Zibanejad and Vincent Trocheck lines know their roles are to score. When the Trocheck line was, for some reason, matched up against Sidney Crosby in a shutdown role, they got torched.
Zibanejad, on the other hand, has that shutdown experience and is an excellent two-way center. In the event the shutdown line (Alex Wennberg’s line) can’t take a top assignment, it will likely fall on Zibanejad’s line or, depending on the opponent, Jonny Brodzinski’s line.
Rangers home ice matters for matchups
When it comes to the Rangers home ice advantage, this is how Laviolette will put his players in the best position to succeed. Last change matters, and the Rangers will be able to get their favorable matchups 4 games out of 7, if necessary.
Assuming the current standings hold and the Islanders (M3) and Red Wings (WC2) make the playoffs, the Rangers would be getting Detroit in the first round. Looking at their most recent lines, it would behoove the Rangers to get Wennberg’s line out there against Dylan Larkin’s line. That would save Zibanejad’s line for the Patrick Kane/Alex Debrincat line, one that can’t play defense to save its life.
In a world where Rangers home ice advantage doesn’t exist, Detroit would probably aim to get Larkin away from Wennberg and Zibanejad, aiming to get them out there against–most likley–the Brodzinski line. That’s a huge shift in matchups and while the Rangers are clearly a better team, favorable matchups make it easier to end the series quicker.
Detroit may not be the best example, so let’s use Boston, the only team that can realistically challenge the Rangers for the top spot in the East. Rangers home ice advantage means that for 4 games, they’d be able to get Wennberg out against David Pastrnak, and likely Zibanejad out there against Brad Marchand.
Think about how Boston will exploit matchups in their 3 home games, and you see why that extra game with home ice matters. It’s not a guarantee that Rangers home ice will ensure a long playoff run, but it increases their odds of winning shifts, which in turn should translate into winning games and series.
Same goes for Dallas and the Roope Hintz/Matt Duchene lines.
Rangers home ice advantage may not mean they are shoo-ins for a long playoff run, but it certainly helps stack the deck in their favor. But in the end, it’s on the stars to produce.
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