Looking Back and Looking Forward

The New York Rangers have missed the playoffs for the second year in a row.

Shocking, I know right. Surprising, not so much.

Yet, this year felt different.

You could tell during Alain Vigneault’s final year as coach of this team, especially after the trade deadline, that this team wanted nothing more than the season to end. Their compete level wasn’t there anymore. The drive to play a full sixty-minutes wasn’t necessary. There just wasn’t a player on this team giving a damn.

Then on April 7, 2018, Alain Vigneault was fired. Fans rejoiced everywhere.

Shortly after, we hired someone who was a teacher, we hired someone who wanted to bring the best out of the youth of this team. To teach them lessons when they did something wrong right away, giving them a reason as to why they were going to be benched.

This man, David Quinn.

Quinn, a coach for Boston University in the NCAA, came to New York with a strong pedigree when it came into the Rangers with a different view and understanding of what exactly was going to happen. They understood the power of their youth, but knew that they had to sprinkle in some veterans to help with the learning process.

While there were questionable signings for the veteran process (eg. Cody McLeod), there was youth around this team that if coached, and taught properly, you could tell that they were going to amount to something going forward. You could tell that they could be something.

There were growing pains this season. There were times that this fanbase was questioning the coach on lineup decisions, on scratching one player over another. Yet, this team at the end of the day competed night in and night out and was refreshing to see. You could tell that this team, regardless of the result actually enjoyed going out on the ice and playing out there with one another.

Another trade deadline came, and we lost some favorites in Mats Zuccarello and Kevin Hayes. Unlike last year, when after losing Ryan McDonagh, Rick Nash and J.T. Miller at the trade deadline, this team lost interest, this team continued to compete and continued to fight for one another. A bright spot on a relatively cloudy season.

You look at what Quinn did, he allowed the young guys to make mistakes. If he benched a player (Pavel Buchnevich, Filip Chytil for example) these guys came out guns blazing after their benching and learned from their mistakes. You heard quotes from Buchnevich in particular, saying that he understood why he was getting benched, which was different from last season.

So yes, while many complained about the benching of those two in particular, they needed the benchings to readjust and reset themselves. They got a fresh perspective when they went back on the ice, and slowly came to earn the coaches trust. As the trust got stronger, they moved up the lineup. Quinn wants hard work, he wants his players to understand his message. It doesn’t matter who you are (Kevin Shattenkirk in particular), if you’re not playing to the potential he thinks you have, you’re going to get benched.

Sure, there was questionable moves. Such as keeping Neal Pionk in the lineup, when clearly he needed to be benched for long stretches to hopefully see if he got it. Removing Pionk from Marc Staal (which Quinn did do), which in turn made Anthony DeAngelo move into a more prominent role on the defense (maturity issues aside).

In goaltending, you saw the trust in Alexandar Georgiev get stronger as he took majority of the starts in the second half for the Rangers. Now what does this mean? Especially with Igor Shestyorkin planning on coming over from the KHL, you have a lot of crowding at the goaltender position. Henrik Lundqvist is getting up there in age but you saw him still fight and compete well game in and game out, still being one of the leaders when it comes to high danger saves, and bailing out the porous defense, Lundqvist did have his shares of struggles this year as well but I think you could say that decline was expected.

It’s good to know that the Rangers have strong goaltending in their pipeline. Georgiev has shown he can come in and start for long stretches and is a formidable back up here in the NHL. I think how he performs next year, and if he can carry more of a load will make everyone see if he can be a true starter in the league. There’s still a lot to look at when it comes to Georgiev.

Prospects like Shestyorkin, Vitali Kravstov, Libor Hajek, Ryan Lindgren, Nils Lundkvist and Yegor Rykov are all players to watch as they all can make an impact on this team within the next year or two. With the Rangers getting the second overall pick in the 2019 draft, along with up to three additional first round picks this year (realistically, one)  you can tell that they have the tools needed to continue to grow their prospect pipeline, but are guaranteed a bondified superstar with their first, first round pick (second). Something General Manager, Jeff Gorton, has been doing since the 2016-2017 season.

The Rangers are in a good spot to sign the big name free agents, they are in a good spot if they wanted to speed the rebuilding process up, they easily could. But at what cost? Is it actually worth trying to speed everything up? Is it worth trading away a player like Chris Kreider, who yes, I like to be hard on because I expect more in terms of what he’s capable of doing, yet has made his linemates around him better, and I don’t think you have a season that Mika Zibanejad had without him playing on his left side, or Buchnevich feeling comfortable playing in the league without his help.

Trading Kreider is something that people will have to watch come draft time. I honestly don’t see this happening, but you never know.

At the end of all this, there is a sense of optimism with the Rangers, positive vibes around this team, which wasn’t the case come the end of last season. Sure, they might not have lost the amount of games that you wanted them to lose, but please do not forget how hard they competed, and how hard Quinn coached these guys to believe.

There’s something to be said about that.