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This isn’t news to Rangers coach David Quinn, but it might be worth reiterating: a lefty on the first power-play unit could help. A lot.
And it turns out he has one that has succeeded there already in 18-year-old rookie Kaapo Kakko, who has shown that he responds well to more responsibility.
It didn’t seem like Quinn was going to be distracted by the handful of good chances the Blueshirts got on their man-advantage while they went 0-for-6 over 9:33 during their listless 4-1 loss to the visiting Golden Knights on Monday, breaking their 4-0-1 run in the previous five. Asked after the game if he thought about switching up his units, Quinn gave an answer about as enthusiastic as his team was over the previous three hours.
“We’ll think about changing it up,” said Quinn, who gave the Rangers the day off on Tuesday while they prepare for Thursday night’s game against the Blue Jackets in Columbus, Ohio.
The power play could have changed the dynamic of that Vegas game drastically, despite the Rangers looking bereft of energy and focus playing their seventh game in 11 days. The power play was also the big story of their 3-2 overtime loss to the mighty Bruins in Boston on the day after Thanksgiving, when an 0-for-6 included 62 seconds of 5-on-3 time and a four-minute double-minor late in the third period with a chance to take the lead.
Really, the group has looked out of sorts since Mika Zibanejad returned on the night before Thanksgiving in a 3-2 win over the Hurricanes. Zibanejad scored a power-play goal in that game, just 2:54 into his return, but they went 1-for-5 that night and are 2-for-19 over the four games since the top-line center came back from his month-long absence due to a neck ailment.
Zibanejad went straight onto the top group with fellow righty-shots Artemi Panarin, Tony DeAngelo (or Adam Fox) and Ryan Strome. Chris Kreider, the net-front presence who doesn’t handle the puck much, is the only lefty-shot. Both Zibanejad and Panarin like playing in the left circle, waiting for the one-timer, while the right circle is a bit of a no-man’s land for both with their blades against the wall.
But it was perfect for the lefty-shooting Kakko, who was over there ready to pull the trigger, had developed some chemistry with Panarin in making that coveted pass across the slot, and had put up seven of his 11 points on the man-advantage.
“Any time you can make that cross-ice pass, you have to be in a shooting mindset,” Quinn said. “As penalty killers, you don’t want that puck to cross that line. You want to keep the play on one side of the ice. But when the puck crosses, you have to be ready to shoot. That doesn’t mean it’s going to be the right play, but you have to be in a shooting mode. If you’re in a shooting mode, you can always pass it out of a shooting mode. But if you’re not ready to shoot it, when you get that puck, you’re only doing one thing.”
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If it can be assumed that neither Zibanejad nor Panarin will come off the first unit — and why would they? — then it seems easy that Strome would move to the second unit, Zibanejad would move to the role in the high slot where he can roam and look for a play, and Panarin and Kakko can work in their natural circles.
Strome can then work with either Pavel Buchnevich or Filip Chytil on the second unit, while it would also make sense that Brendan Lemieux cements himself as the net-front presence there rather than Quinn juggling him and Chytil on or off the power play from game to game (if not within each game).
The Rangers are a team that struggles to be physically engaged every game, but one that does have quite a bit of offensive talent. That means the power play has to be a weapon, and when it’s not, the Rangers are going to struggle to win with consistency.
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