What’s Up With The Rangers?

*Note – this article was written by friend of the podcast Shannon Re and is her take of the Rangers poor 1-5 start.*

I’m prefacing this with the fact that I let myself stew for a bit before writing. These are my thoughts on the Rangers start to the season, and how to fix it after thinking about it. This is not my gut reaction, because there would be a lot more screaming and cursing. I’m trying to be logical and look at this with an even head.

Let’s be brutally honest: the Rangers are not looking good. They don’t look like a good team, and they are not performing like one, either. Currently, the Rangers sit 30th in the league with two points from their win against Montreal. They are last in the monstrous Metropolitan Division with one win in six games and a goal differential of minus-8. The underlying numbers don’t make them look any better, so I’m just going to leave them out to spare us all some more pain.

They are also not what a lot of fans expected to start the season. Sure, there was an expectation that the team would falter a bit. Given the amount of moves the Rangers made this offseason, it was expected that they wouldn’t look dominant. Not the way they did last year, when they came out of the gate scoring goals left and right.

We just didn’t expect them to look this bad.

So why are they this bad? The Rangers have Henrik Lundqvist in goal. Every game should be close, right? Well, while it’d be nice to point to Hank and say all our problems are solved, that’s just not possible or plausible.

Look at the Habs: they have Carey Price and are also off to a poor start. The thing is, your goalie can’t win you a game by himself. The whole team has to work together, and that has been an issue.

The Rangers have been unlucky, sure. The season opener against the Avalanche should have been a win. Semyon Varlamov had an incredible game and stopped more pucks than he probably should have. The Leafs game was interesting. There were breakdowns amongst the whole team and it seems like they’ve kept faltering since then. Yes, they shutout Montreal, but there were moments in that game when the team relied on Hank to stop everything and keep Montreal off the board, which wasn’t too hard considering Montreal’s lack of scoring this year.

It’s easy to look at all of this and blame Alain Vigneault. And I do. Oh boy, I do. Alain Vigneault has been given a solid roster and has completely mismanaged it. He doesn’t give his lines or defensive pairings time to settle and get used to each other. Switching things up every night isn’t going to magically make the team better, and means they have to get used to new people every night.

It’s really frustrating to watch because looking at it on paper, this team should be solid. Not great, but solid. And yet, not all the blame is on AV. Sure, most of it is. But let’s be honest, some of the blame is on the players, too. The Rangers haven’t looked sharp. They miss passes, misread plays, and look like a bit of a mess in the defensive zone. While I get that they haven’t had time to adjust to new linemates and teammates fully, the level and severity of these miscommunications has been very noticeable.

So how do we fix this?

Firing Alain Vigneault is an option. I like that option every time I see the practice lines and defensive pairings. I’m just not certain you get to replace him. I’m hesitant to suggest promoting Lindy Ruff because the defense in Dallas the past few seasons has not been the most promising. And with Henrik Lundqvist getting older, the Rangers really need to pay attention to who’s in front of him and how they are playing. The defensive strategy cannot be, “Well, Lundqvist is back there, so we’re good”. We need to actually ice a solid defensive group who will help Hank, not make his life more difficult.

Another option is Jeff Gorton pushing on AV to stick to a lineup. One thing that always seems curious to me is the communication between general managers and head coaches. The GM is technically the one who builds the team while the head coach manages the team and makes the day to day decisions.

So if Jeff Gorton built this team, why does he not push on AV to use the players he went out and acquired? Or at least talk to AV to figure out what is going through his mind. From a fan’s vantage point, the teams that do the best or have the most consistent line-ups (which typically lead to more success) are the teams that have a head coach and GM who seem to communicate.

My two examples are the Chicago Blackhawks and Toronto Maple Leafs. Lou Lamoriello and Mike Babcock obviously have some line of communication about the Leafs and the roster. They also have Brendan Shanahan and his “Shanaplan” to work off of, but the open line of communication and understanding is evident.

With the Blackhawks, Stan Bowman has said many times that he and Joel Quenneville talk multiple times a week. He’s said that when it comes to trades, Coach Q tells him what he needs and Bowman gets it. There’s a level of communication there and I think the Rangers organization is lacking that. So Gorton and AV, get into the conference room and talk.

It’s not much of a solution, but six games into the season, I’d like to see something other than firing a coach. If Gorton and AV can talk about why the team looks like this and why AV keeps putting the lines through the blender for no apparent reason, maybe we can right this ship.

It’s too early to say that the Rangers are done for the season, tank now, and get the high draft pick. If our coach and GM can get on the same page, I have faith for this team and this season. AV needs to adapt though and not be rigid. Communication might be key for the Rangers this season and I’d like for that to start sooner rather than later.

Where you can find Shannon:

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