Seriously, what the FUCK is going on here??
You’re allowed to be as confused, mad, disappointed, frustrated and about 12 other emotions that I don’t have the energy to type out right now when it comes to thinking about the Rangers. Up is down. Left is right. The upside down is actually reality.
Nothing the New York Rangers are doing right now makes any kind of sense. Not a damn thing.
There are at least four things to be completely flabbergasted and disgusted about. We’ve covered them, either in articles or in podcast forms. So let’s cut the shit and focus on the most recent case of what the fuck hitting the Rangers.
Earlier today, the Rangers placed Adam Cracknell on waivers. Not that big of a deal. Alain Vigneault was clearly uncomfortable playing Cracknell at C, and was putting the Rangers in situations where they felt the need to play 7 defenseman to cover for it. Cracknell’s presence on the roster was forcing the team to constantly roll lines without any chemistry and it showed, as the Rangers were struggling to create scoring chances in the second half of the Predators game and all night against the Sharks.
Trading out Cracknell for an actual forward the team can slide in at 4C is logical. What the Rangers did next is…it’s something else entirely.
The Rangers have been misusing Anthony DeAngelo for the entire season. Alain Vigneault hasn’t been able to figure out how to use DeAngelo when he’s been in the line-up.
Part of the problem with ADA, of course, is the Rangers don’t have a perfect pairing for him defensively. Despite playing much better individually this season, Marc Staal was an imperfect partner for DeAngelo. Putting DeAngelo next to Ryan McDonagh on paper is a good idea (help your weakest defensive zone defender by putting him with your best), but the second you run ADA out against an opposing team’s top line, you’re completely negating everything you’re trying to accomplish.
ADA probably works best with Brendan Smith as his partner. The problem with that is two fold: 1) Smith himself has played poorly at times this season and 2) we’ve seen how effective the Skjei-Smith pairing has been when both are at their full powers, so breaking that up can be hard to swallow.
[/text_output][image type=”circle” src=”722″ alt=”” href=”” title=”” info_content=”” lightbox_caption=”” id=”” class=”” style=””][text_output]Instead, what we’ve seen with DeAngelo is a revolving door to the press box. Vigneault has found excuses to play Nick Holden and Steve Kampfer ahead of him and whenever the Rangers have needed someone to play as the 7th defender, it’s been DeAngelo. Don’t be impressed by the 12:46 of total ice time ADA got last night. He saw less than 7 minutes total on the ice in even strength scenarios, or about 5 minutes less than noted AV All-Star Nick Holden.Today, the Rangers demoted DeAngelo to Hartford. The only positive is DeAngelo will see top pairing minutes in Hartford and be given a chance to play and develop (does that sound familiar? It fucking should. I’ve written it before about Filip fucking Chytil).
All the negatives, you ask? Where do we fucking begin? Holden will see the ice every night. When he doesn’t, it’ll be Steve Kampfer who will. The Rangers inept power play unit takes a significant step backwards without DeAngelo on the ice (a unit that for some god damn reason includes David Desharnais but not Kevin Hayes).
Even worse, this is the guy the Rangers pinpointed as being the prize of the Derek Stepan/Antti Raanta trade. This is the guy that was supposed to slot in and make an immediate difference for this team. This is the guy the team feels comfortable building around the future.
The only thing that turns out to be comfortable about it is AV’s continued comfort in shit-canning every young player the team puts in front of him.
As for who the Rangers plan to bring in to fill their two roster spots: I honestly don’t know. One of Boo Nieves, Adam Tambellini or Vinni Lettieri will be coming up to replace the 4C spot (I’m sorry if it doesn’t happen, I’m doing that thing where I’m being logical). The Rangers could bring up an 8th defenseman again in the form of Alexei Bereglazov or Neal Pionk, but neither would play if they’re up here. So what would the point be?
It’s exhausting being this angry at the Rangers on a daily basis. It really isn’t this hard to figure out what the ideal line-ups should be. 75% of #RangersTwitter can do it.
So why can’t Vigneault and Gorton?[/text_output]
Author: Greg Kaplan
Greg Kaplan is a man of mystery. Did he write this? No. Was he asked to write this? Yes. But did he write this article? Maybe, do you like it?