Welcome to a new weekly article where some of the Blueshirts Breakaway staff gives their reactions to the past week of New York Rangers games and news.
Ryan – What a week huh? It is no secret that the Rangers are trying to “rebuild on the fly” and the Stepan trade made that message loud and clear. But at the end of the day I find myself questioning the transaction more and more. It does make me wonder if management thought the window has passed for the Hank era. I personally felt that this team had one or two more years of potential cup runs left in them and while this season is far from over, I can’t help but think we’re at least 3 and 3 if Stepan is on this team. I want this team to be competitive for years to come (obviously) but that will rely on Lias and Chytil living up to their full potential and that took possibly sacraficing the last year(s) of Hanks window.
Speaking of management since the decision handling of the Ottawa series AV has had some serious heat from fans. This weekend chants of “Fire AV” echoed throughout the Garden for maybe the first time. I was a long time defender of AV, a coach who brought us a presidents cup and deep playoff runs, those days are over. The questionable suffling of the lineup, the talent evaluation, who to play and when, I can’t defend him any longer. I always thought AV’s talent lied within his system and his ability to control the locker room, now I’m starting to question those too.
Its hard not to overreact the second week of the season but all the signs are there.
We might not be rebuilding “on the fly” anymore.
Greg – Pretty sure I made my thoughts known on Sunday.
Drew – When I first started thinking about what I wanted to write for our first edition of Breakaway Takeaway, I told myself I was going to dig through the data and see if I could identify some positives to shed light on, since the negatives have been highlighted extensively by fans and writers alike. But then I attended the Saturday night game against the Devils at MSG, and that went out the window. The Rangers looked ok in spurts on Saturday night, particularly at the beginning and end of the game, but for a team that has been struggling, you NEED to do much better than “ok in spurts” against a team that is projected by all to be among those hoping to hear their name called as the lottery winner next Spring. Sure, the Devils have been better than expected early on this season, but there is still no excuse for looking lifeless for long stretches against a heated division rival that also isn’t a very good team.
So now here we are, and I’ve decided to ditch trying to highlight the positives, and instead I will simply present the story that the data shows. Spoiler alert: it’s dark and full of terrors. To this point in the season, the Rangers have been a remarkable combination of bad at hockey, and unlucky. First, let’s look at the most basic stats. The Rangers have the fourth worst goal differential in hockey at -8, with 21 goals against and a paltry 13 goals for in 6 games. What’s worse, is the team has only 6 goals at even strength, a mere one per game.
In terms of 5v5 shot attempts, the Rangers are 22nd in the league in in CF% at 47.17% (Corsi For Percentage = the percentage of shot attempts a team takes compared to the opponent). When you look at score adjusted CF% (which weights shot attempts based on the score of the game, to account for the fact that when teams are trailing, they are typically pressing and therefor getting more shots), the picture is even more bleak, as the team drops to 26th with an adjusted CF% of 45.82%. Looking at 5v5 expect goals, which accounts for both shot quality and quantity, the picture is not much better (keep an eye out for my article later this week discussing this stat further). The Rangers currently sit 25th in xGF% at 46.49% (Expected Goals For Percentage = the percentage of expected goals a team accumulates compared to the opponent). In layman’s terms, what all this means is that the Rangers are not only among the worst in the league in generating shot attempts compared to their opponents, but they also are equally poor in generating high quality scoring chances.
The Rangers have been a bad team through 6 games.
The Rangers also have been unlucky, which makes things even worse in the standings. The stat PDO is typically used as a measurement for luck, as it is a measurement of whether a team is getting abnormally good goaltending and shooting, as it considers both save and shooting percentages. A team with a PDO above 100 is deemed to be getting lucky, as they have logged an above average shooting percentage, save percentage, or both. Now, there certainly are teams that have proven over a long stretch of time that they shoot more efficiently and/or save a higher percentage of shots than the average; for example, the Rangers have been able to sustain a high PDO for years under Alain Vigneault, which has led many analysts to believe the Rangers system combined with their roster (Henrik Lundqvist) help them sustain this level of play.
However, despite being a team that historically has a high PDO, this isn’t the case this year. Currently, the Rangers have a PDO of just 95.84, which is the 24th highest in the league. Not only is that unlucky by any team’s standards, it is extraordinarily unlucky for the Rangers in particular.
If you want to extrapolate any positives out of all of this, it is that the low PDO is extremely unlikely to continue, so the Rangers should perform better just based on regression up in their shooting percentage. However, it is also undeniable that the Rangers have been a bad team, and not just unlucky, and they need to right the ship quickly if they hope to have any shot at a playoff run in a tough Metropolitan division.
Author: Ryan Mead
Ryan is the creator of Blueshirts Breakaway, a collector of Christmas sweaters, a man who makes a yearly calendar of himself and an avid brunch enthusiast
Ryan also has constant cold sweats due to Rick Nash’s breakaway during game 7 vs the Lightning, every time a puck hit the crossbar in overtime in 2015 and when the Rangers didn’t trade Keith Yandle.