The Rangers and Canucks played classic Mike Sullivan hockey last night: Boring. It’s safe to assume many fell asleep with the 10pm EST start time and the type of hockey played, but it resulted in a 2-0 win for the Blueshirts, hopefully righting the ship. This was Quick’s 64th career shutout, tying him with some guy named Henrik Lundqvist for 17th all time in the NHL. The Rangers needed a great response after the disastrous performance in Calgary, and though these kinds of low-event games aren’t always “entertaining,” the Rangers need wins right now. If this is the way to accrue points until they start firing on all cylinders, so be it.
Defensively, this looked much more like the Rangers we saw in the first few games of the season. Giving up very little high danger chances against, mostly keeping shots to the perimeter, cleaning up any sort of rebounds, and breaking the puck out of the zone. The Rangers were much more structured, and though it comes at the expense of offense right now, the firepower will eventually figure itself out.
It’s hard to say if the current roster construction can sustain this type of play. It’s generally not a good idea to only score one goal with a goalie in net. But the Rangers are doing what they can with the personnel they can dress at this current time.
Mika Zibanejad has looked quite good at center again this season, something Dave called out as a possibility before the season started. He’s not on pace to score 40 goals, but he has looked much better in every facet of the game and has been by far the best Rangers forward this season. I would say that Mike Sullivan going over to meet him in Sweden has paid off in the early goings of the season.
Mika has bought in to Sullivan’s system, and though he’s a tad snakebitten to start the year, Mika is checking off all the boxes of what you want in a top six center while Vincent Trocheck still lingers on LTIR. It’s going to be interesting to see what Sully chooses to do with Zibanejad once Trocheck returns. Noah Laba does not look out of place as the 3C, but would Mika make more sense at center, thus filling out the wings with some of the young talent marinating in Hartford?
Jonathan Quick really is an ageless wonder in the crease. He is 2-1 to start the year with a 1.66 GAA and a .942 save percentage. By all accounts, he’s locked in and giving the a chance to win in each game he starts, even at an old man age of 39. In some ways, the low-event hockey kind of takes you back to the Henrik Lundqvist led Black & Blueshirts when John Tortorella was behind the bench (with Sully), and the Rangers won a lot of 2-1, 3-2, or 2-0 games.
Facing Edmonton on Thursday, it’s going to be interesting to see how the team responds to this win. Does it give them confidence to go into a rowdy Edmonton building and take another two points in the standings?
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