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Game 17: NYR-TB, is coaching style change reason for Kaako hot streak?

November 14, 2019, 7:46 AM ET [192 Comments]
Jan Levine
New York Rangers Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT
The Rangers head to Florida for a pair of games. Tonight, the Blueshirts take on the Lightning, while on Saturday, the Panthers are on the docket. New York has played much better lately, relying on solid goaltending and spread out scoring while showing some signs of improvement defensively. The Sunshine State swing should be a good test for New York, who kick off a stretch of 11 road games in their next 16 contests with the match up against Tampa.

When sometimes less is more. That adage has never been more true than with Kappo Kaako. The quotes below from coach David Quinn show how he changed how he managed Kakko. The end result has been positive as Kaako is showing the swagger that made him the second overall pick this past draft. Kakko quite possibly may have been overthinking on the ice, reacting instead of just playing and using his hockey sense to make plays, which is what he seems to be doing more of during this hot streak.

“About 2 ¹/₂ weeks ago, I told him I wasn’t going to talk to him anymore,” Quinn said following practice Wednesday. “I’m not joking when I say that. I literally felt that as a staff we really wanted him to be good so fast and all of us were spending a lot of time with him. You could just see it in his face. Finally, I told our whole staff [to lay off of him]. I said to him, ‘The only thing I’m going to say to you is hello.’

“The one thing I will say [to Kakko], I’ll talk about effort and being physical, those are the only two things we’ll talk about. I said, ‘But we’ve got to let you play.’ I think that might’ve helped him a little bit, but I also think adapting to the NHL is hard for any 18-year-old. Sometimes the best coaching is no coaching and I think this is an example.”


All of the above sounds nice but it would be moot if Kaako didn’t take to heart the demotion off the top-six and improve his effort, especially off the puck. The latter point is an area of need for Lias Andersson, which is a point that Quinn has made. But as seen from the quote below, Quinn believes that Kaako’s play away from the puck has resulted in his improved performance offensively.

“It’s because of the way he’s approaching the game and the things that he’s been doing away from the puck that has put him in a situation to be productive offensively,” Quinn said. “Those are the things that we’re going to continue to harp on. The great thing for all of us is that he’s eager to do it and willing to do it.”


Alexandar Georgiev will be between the pipes tonight while Henrik Lundqvist plays Saturday. Mika Zibanejad misses his eighth straight game and will sit Saturday as well. He is skating on his own and that’s basically all we know. Ryan Strome has more than filled the first line role in his stead, and when Zib returns, then the line blender will come out again. We have discussed several times the possible options that exist.

Vince Mercogliano covered this question is his recent mailbag column, writing:

Option A: 1) Panarin - Zibanejad - Strome; 2) Kreider - Chytil - Buchnevich; 3) Lemieux - Howden - Kakko; 4) Brendan Smith - Andersson - Fast

Option B: 1) Panarin - Zibanejad - Kakko; 2) Kreider - Chytil - Buchnevich; 3) Lemieux - Strome - Fast; 4) Greg McKegg - Howden - Smith (with Andersson in the AHL)


Open to which one option you like or if you have combinations you would rather see or view as a better fit.

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