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Game 29: NYR-LV, Andersson's big game at Hartford, Kravtsov demoted

December 8, 2019, 4:12 PM ET [110 Comments]
Jan Levine
New York Rangers Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT
The Rangers take on the Golden Knights tonight, as they kick off a four-game West Coast swing with the next three games in California. New York comes in off a 2-1 loss to Montreal while Vegas is now third in the Pacific Division. The big news of the day was Lias Andersson's hot Saturday and Vitali Kravtsov "demoted" to the VHL for at least one game.

The lines today may be the same way the Rangers ended Friday's game with one small twist. I expect Pavel Buchnevich to be back up on the third line with Brendan Smith down on the fourth. Buchnevich was demoted during the loss to Montreal, seeing just three shifts in third period Friday.

Artemi Panarin-Mika Zibanejad-Kaapo Kakko
Chris Kreider-Ryan Strome-Jesper Fast
Brendan Lemieux-Filip Chytil-Pavel Buchnevich 
Brendan Smith-Brett Howden-Greg McKegg

Brady Skjei-Jacob Trouba
Marc Staal-Tony DeAngelo
Adam Fox-Ryan Lindgren

Larry Brooks described the situation with Buchnevich the best, though I am still believer in him despite the fact that he can be maddening at times.

Buchnevich is a taffy-pull for Quinn. The winger is simply not physically engaged consistently enough to warrant the minutes and assignments his skill-set would otherwise merit. It has been a year-plus of cajoling from the coach and a year-plus of intermittent responses from the player. If the 24-year-old Russian cannot get top-six and power-play minutes, then it is probably better for all concerned that he play elsewhere.


Brooks didn't limit his comments to just Buchnevich, touching on Howden. His view is one that I think we all have. Unless Strome is moved to wing, freeing up the 3c role for Howden - which as I said last week, I don't think he deserves or is a best fit - then he will stuck on the fourth line and should possibly be sent down. That isn't the popular view by all but one that might be best for his development. But we could see Strome on the wing and Howden tried at the third-line center.

If Howden is going to continue in a fourth-line role in which he can expect a ceiling of 10 minutes a night, it is probably best for both the center’s development and the organization that he join Andersson in Hartford. Howden has three assists in his past nine games and five points (one goal, four assists) in his past 20 contests.


Andersson:


Good for Andersson to have a big game, deserved. But it is just one game, so I need to see him string together several good contests in a row before I think he has turned the corner. I am not ready to write him off, as others have, but do recognize that he still has a long way to go.

Kravtsov:


My hope is that this is just a situation, as Stat Boy Steve said, where Kravtsov needs to get re-acclimated to playing in the KHL and on a bigger ice surface. In addition, he came in partway through the season, also slightly setting him back. But the biggest culprit was probably a loss of confidence, which began when he didn't make the parent club out of training camp. Getting demoted is not ideal and hopefully it's just for a game. 

But you have to wonder, as we did, if staying in North America, playing in Hartford, adapting and learning that style of play would have been best for his development. In addition, doing so would have shown a level of stick-to-itiveness and willingness to deal with whatever hardships and difficulties that would have come his way, like Filip Chytil did when he forced a call up. i could see Jeff Gorton trying to bring him back to the US to aid his development and put him in the best possible place for success.

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