Rangers defense problem won’t be fixed by a rental

With a soft trade deadline–for the Four Nations Tournament–fast approaching and JT Miller finally back on Broadway, attention has shifted to the Rangers defense problem. Will Borgen has stabilized the bottom pair, and Urho Vaakanainen’s steady improvements have given the Rangers a solid enough third pair, it’s the top pair that is the cause of most of the Rangers defense problems right now. And that is not an easy position to fix.

At the risk of beating a dead horse, we all know Ryan Lindgren is no longer the answer. There is always hope that his game improves, but the last two years have been riddled with injuries, playing through injuries when he shouldn’t, and just overall ineffectiveness in Peter Laviolette’s man/zone hybrid system. Throw in struggles in defending zone entries and an inability to move the puck efficiently, and you have a guy who is not a good fit anymore, as painful as that sounds.

As the Rangers continue to win and move up in the standings, the need to address this glaring weakness intensifies. Unfortunately, the rental route may be the only realistic route to take, and it won’t be a good use of assets. The Rangers don’t have many picks left to use, so they’d be dealing from prospects that they probably don’t want to trade. That may mean dealing from a position of weakness and parting with someone like Brennan Othmann or Drew Fortescue, whom Chris Drury did not want to trade for JT Miller.

While trading Fortescue or Othmann–or Adam Sykora, Brett Berard, etc–isn’t a deal breaker for the Rangers, trading them for rentals probably is a deal breaker. You have to give to get in this league, but giving a prospect that is projected to have a big role in the NHL soon for one playoff run is not a good use of assets. Think trading Todd Marchant for Craig MacTavish. It worked, but it wasn’t the best use of Marchant’s value at the time, and at least the 1994 Rangers were securely in a playoff spot at the time of the trade.

Rangers defense problem is a catch-22

The Rangers defense problem this year has been the source of many column inches. Improving the Rangers defense problem is critical to their playoff hopes and a sustained run. But improving the Rangers defense problem is no guarantee they even make the playoffs.

So what do the Rangers do? Do they make a big trade to address a need, potentially with a rental? Or do they see how things play out as is to determine if they actually should address the problem?

The thing is, the Rangers may not be in a secure playoff spot without addressing either this problem or the need for a 3C. On paper, the Rangers are better than every team ahead of them in the wild card hunt, but they haven’t played like they should. Most of the other teams have been able to punch up because they have executed better. The Rangers defense problems plagued them most of the season, and when the offense dried up in December, they took a swan dive in the standings.

The win over Boston in regulation the other day was huge. Some injury news in the Eastern Conference also helped them a bit, but it’s still on the team to prove they can course correct this season. The Rangers defense problem needs to be addressed, but whether it’s addressed by the trade deadline or in the offseason is more on how the Rangers play the next two games and then out of the Four Nations break.