The Rangers offense problems are starting to become annoying. As JT Miller said, it’s not cute anymore. For all intents and purposes, the Rangers have been a somewhat solid team at 5v5. They aren’t perfect of course, and there are a bunch of roster holes, but the process has been there. Thing is, you can only talk process over results for so long before the results need to start to show. It’s been 14 games and the Rangers still haven’t won at home, scoring just six goals at MSG, five in one game against the lowly San Jose Sharks. That’s historically bad.

The left heatmap above represents the Rangers shooting rates from their shots in the offensive zone. Blue is lower shooting rates (bad), red is higher shooting rates (good). Essentially the end result of the Rangers offense problems is really bad shooting percentages in high danger areas. This isn’t normal and will likely regress, meaning we should see those goals start to come at some point. Their shots from high danger are hitting the goalies in the crest, and this team is too good to let that continue.

But.

The right heatmap shows where the Rangers are getting their shots off in the offensive zone. Red means more shots, blue means fewer shots. Generally speaking, you want more red closer to the net and then fade to lighter red and blue as you move into the low danger areas. If you’re seeing what I’m seeing, then you’re seeing the Rangers offense problems too. They lack creativity. If it’s not a net front shot or a point shot, they defer.

The Rangers are predictable right now. Predictable in hockey isn’t good, it’s easy to defend. While the Rangers certainly have good defensive process and at least have a willingness to get the high danger chances in front, the skill guys are just focusing on north-south offense. North-south hockey is great for the basics, but when it comes to fixing the Rangers offense problems, they need to be a bit more east-west in the offensive zone and on the rush.

To me, one of the Rangers offense problems is a lack of successful slot line passes. That weapon appears to have disappeared completely from their arsenal. To be clear, this doesn’t mean they don’t attempt these passes, it means they haven’t been successful in their attempts, at least at 5v5.

There are many inputs into why these slot line passes aren’t working, and there is no easy solution. Skill level, injuries, team construction, learning a new system, etc. But to me, I think Occam’s razor applies here. The simplest answer is the Rangers aren’t stretching the defense by cutting to the net. The Rangers offense problems arise when they are predictable by not doing the basics in the offensive zone. Too many times we’ve seen them sitting there and not moving to open ice, cutting to the net to create more open ice to attack, deferring to point shots and hoping for a deflection that won’t come now that Chris Kreider is gone.

Rangers offense problems are on the powerplay as well

The Rangers offense problems are also seen on the powerplay, where they still have excellent raw numbers and a poor shooting percentage. The Rangers are even more predictable on the powerplay, and there’s only so much they can do with trying to mirror what worked two years ago that clearly isn’t working now. Feeding Mika Zibanejad isn’t working anymore, and this has little to do with Zibanejad himself.

To reiterate: Predictability kills offense. The Rangers offense problems are almost entirely rooted in predictability, which impacts shooting percentage. There are almost no shots coming from the right circle where Artemi Panarin usually is, but where Alexis Lafreniere currently is due to Vincent Trocheck’s injury. If there is no shooting threat, then there’s no need to respect the shot. Lafreniere doesn’t even need to be successful with his shots, he just needs to shoot it. Make them respect the shot, and that opens up the slot line pass to Zibanejad.

The Rangers offense problems are easily explained away as shooting percentage woes. But something drives shooting percentage beyond skill level and general luck. For the Rangers, they aren’t creating enough as they have in the past, which leads to scoring droughts like this. They need a bit more creativity and a bit less north-south in the offensive zone.

It’s about a balance, not shifting to 100% east-west or 100% north-south. Balance helps creativity, which helps create open ice by being less predictable. If teams need to respect all of the dump in, slot line pass, drive to the net, and a shot attempt, then the Rangers become much harder to defend. Hopefully that creativity returns, along with a spike in shooting percentage.

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