The Rangers ended their four-game losing streak with a 2-1 win over the Capitals in the back end of their home-and-home. Once again, it was the true first line of Artemi Panarin-Vincent Trocheck-Alexis Lafrenière leading the way with Panarin scoring in the first minute of the game and Lafrenière in the final minute of the first period. The game also marked the return of Kaapo Kakko who missed 21 games with his lower-body injury suffered Nov. 27. Igor Shesterkin made 24 saves, including one just before the final buzzer, to secure the win. New York takes on a red-hot Seattle team Tuesday at home.
Game recap:
Lindgren-Fox Miller-Trouba Gustafsson-Schneider
Shesterkin Quick
Scratches: Pitlick (week-to-week), Jones LTIR: Chytil
A few thoughts: 1) Kakko - so much for easing him into action. Coach Peter Laviolette placed Kakko right back on the first line. It was a mixed bag for Kakko in his return. After a nice pass from Lafrenière, Kakko was stoned in the slot at the end of a first-period power play by Charlie Lindgren, who was brilliant again. On the flip side, at 5v5, his line with Chris Kreider and Mika Zibanejad failed to register a shot on goal, though I place more of the blame there on the current version of the glimmer twins. Overall, Kakko finished with 16:04 TOI, two shots on goal on four attempts and two hits; a solid first effort in his return to action.
2) Panarin and Lafrenière - we are running out of superlatives for Panarin, yet in almost each game, he finds a way to raise his game. His goal gave Panarin 400 points as a Ranger. That mark came in his 310th game, which is the fastest in team history. Panarin has 127 goals and 273 assists since joining the Rangers in 2019-20 and 720 points (243 goals, 477 assists) in his career, which began in 2015-16 with the Blackhawks.
Today, Lafrenière was rewarded for his fine play, netting his first in nine games. Braden Schenider made a great play to get to the puck in the offensive zone and feed Laf. After getting stoned in his first shot by Lindgren, Laf stuck with it and put the next one home.
Laf has been very noticeable, even if he has not been scoring. As Vince Mercogliano highlighted, Laf led the Rangers with 50 individual HDCF at 5v5 entering Sunday, according to Natural Stat Trick. He had five shots Sunday, the seventh straight game he has notched three or more. Sooner or later he was going to be rewarded, fortunately it was today.
3) Little production from the remainder of the lineup - as Vince Mercogliano noted, the Panarin-Trocheck-Lafrenière line led the charge throughout the afternoon, outshooting the Caps, 8-2, in 9:06 time on ice together. Avert your eyes from this - the other three lines failed to produce a goal Sunday while being outshot by a combined margin of 11-3. The worst of the bunch was the trio featuring Will Cuylle, Nick Bonino and Blake Wheeler, who lost their SOG battle by a 6-0 tally. By the third period, Laviolette swapped Bonino with Jonny Brodzinski.
The lack of depth, even with the return of Kakko, has been all too noticeable. New York's bottom-six has shown little while the "top line" really has not done much at all, which is why I made the milk carton comment in my prior blog. From the current last two lines, only Will Cuylle and Jimmy Vesey really have shown they deserve to be in the lineup. The remainder all could be on the bench.
4) Game itself - I thought New York had a great first period, beyond that, disappointing. Washiington carried the play the final 40 minutes. Charlie Lindgren made several brilliant saves and maybe eventually the Rangers will realize where his glove hand is, as he is a lefty, so it's on the right side and shoot high.
The mistakes we saw in the third period yesterday and much of the current slump were on display again. Missed chances to clear the puck, including almost a disastrous one by Erik Gustafsson, who should be benched and replaced by either Zac Jones or Matthew Robertson for at least a game or two, were all too common. The lack of offensive push besides the Panarin line also was apparent again. Washington was able to come through the neutral zone and gain the offensive zone too easily. I thought Jacon Trouba and Braden Scheider were their two best d-men, their partners, yucch.
5) Power - outage - play - in New York's last five games, they have gone 0-for-3 against Montreal, had no power plays against Vanouver, 1-for-2 versus St. Louis, 0-for-3 yesterday and 0-for-5 today against Washington. In summary, the man-advantage went just 1-for-13 in the five games. Some credit has to go to the goalies but the Rangers' set up and pressure on the power play was non-existent way too often.
Teams have started to cheat over to Mika Zibanejad at the left dot for the one-timer. Few clear shots were on net with Chris Kreider in front for a top. The bumper spot has been all but forgotten. When New York is rolling, they do a good job of puck and player movement to create passing and shooting lanes. Lately, gaining the zone has been a challenge, the same with putting pressure on the D by stretching the PK out and finding lanes.