Breakaway Takeaways, Vol. 2

[custom_headline type=”left” level=”h4″ looks_like=”h4″ accent=”true” id=”” class=”” style=””]Vigneault Makes This Harder Than It Has To Be[/custom_headline]

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[text_output]There is no defensible reason to justify playing Pavel Buchnevich on the fourth line.  Buchnevich recieving the second-lowest TOI allotment in the 4-2 win against the Nashville Predators is outrageous.

Buchnevich is – without question, mind you – one of the best playmakers the Rangers have to offer. Slotting him on a fourth line with players unqualified to capitalizing on the scoring chances Buch can create is a total waste of his ability.[/text_output]

[text_output]When things were at their poorest for the Rangers offensively, the one line that routinely produced was the Kreider-Zibanejad-Buchnevich line. Breaking up that line to get other players going is fine, but moving Buchnevich down to the fourth line is the very definition of a waste.

Defensively, the pairing problems continue to exist. The top pairing needs to be Ryan McDonagh-Kevin Shattenkirk, and that’s what it has needed to be since opening night. Both Brady Skjei and Brendan Smith have struggled at parts this season, and one has to wonder if splitting them up only exacerbated their early-season issues.

Marc Staal has, admittedly, been better than anyone could’ve hoped for when this season started. His inclusion in the Rangers line-up – for now – is not an issue.

The issue now is the constant shuffling of Anthony DeAngelo.

It’s been hard to justify the Derek Stepan-Antti Raanta trade since the day it happened. However, you could see reasons why the Rangers made the move, both financially and speaking from a long-term perspective. While Lias Andersson may have been the ultimate prize, Anthony DeAngelo was clearly the 1B in the deal. The trade wouldn’t have been completed if New York only received the 7th overall pick.

And yet, DeAngelo is being yanked in and out of the line-up on a game-to-game basis. Why make him a priority in the biggest trade of the off-season for the team if he wasn’t going to be a focal point for the Rangers this year? Why even keep him on the active roster when he could be getting top pairing minutes in Hartford? Why the fucking hell are Nick Holden and Steve Kampfer even on this roster, let alone taking playing time away from a young defenseman who is trying to develop on the job?

There are aspects of being a head coach that are hard to quantify. What’s easy to understand – AV is making everything more difficult for himself when he doesn’t have to.

GK[/text_output]

[custom_headline type=”left” level=”h4″ looks_like=”h4″ accent=”true” id=”” class=”” style=””]Saturday Afternoon Live[/custom_headline][text_output]Keetner [/text_output]

[custom_headline type=”left” level=”h4″ looks_like=”h4″ accent=”true” id=”” class=”” style=””]A Glimmer of Hope[/custom_headline][text_output]This past week has been a complete mixed bag in terms of the play of the Rangers. On the bright side, the previous weeks were pretty much all bad, so the fact that this week was up and down represents a sizeable step in the right direction. Since our first edition of Breakaway Takeaways last Monday, the team played the Penguins, Islanders and Predators, going 1-0-2, good for 4 points in 3 games. The Rangers looked good for stretches of all three games, but also looked extremely vulnerable for stretches.

They notched a vintage Alain Vigneualt-coached win against the Predators, looking like the better team for most of the first two periods (especially the first), but receding into their shell in the third, putting on full display the sphincter-clinching style of play we have all come to know and love; and by love I mean hate. At one point near the end of the 2^nd period when I checked the live game feature on Corsica, the game was about even in score-adjusted 5v5 Corsi (shot attempts weighted to account for the fact that the losing team is likely pressing, and therefor likely to get off more shot attempts), but the Rangers had a 5v5 expected goals for percentage of about 66%, meaning they were getting much better scoring chances than the Predators. However, the Predators dominated the Rangers in the third, controlling the play for nearly the entire period, but fortunately for the Rangers, Henrik Lundqvist is still very good. When it was all said and done, the Predators held sizable advantages in all shot-based metrics for 5v5 play and all situations, and the game was about even in expect goals; however, the Rangers won on the scoreboard, and came away with a critical 2 points, so I’ll take it. The image below is from Corsica’s live game feature, and the stats represent all situations across the entire game.[/text_output][image type=”thumbnail” float=”none” src=”730″ alt=”” href=”” title=”” info_content=”” lightbox_caption=”” id=”” class=”aligncenter” style=””][text_output]

Corsica Live Game Feature – All Situations Goals, Shots, Shot Attempts and Expected Goals Totals

[/text_output][text_output]Overall, I’m still remarkably frustrated with Alain Vigneault’s roster decisions (which Greg touched on above), but the team appears to be righting the ship a bit on the ice. I came away from the week cautiously optimistic that the team can continue to improve its play and slowly climb up the standings. Despite the gigantic hole at center, I believe this roster is good enough to put together a run and still compete for a playoff spot, IF the talent is deployed properly, which obviously is a huge if given Alain Vigneault’s recent and career track records. I’m certainly not running out and betting that the Rangers will make the playoffs at this point, but if they continue to play like they did in the first period against Nashville, and Gorton can take advantage of the shaky-at-best GMs in Edmonton or Montreal to pry away either Ryan Nugent-Hopkins or Alex Galchenyuk for a reasonable price, this team could still find itself in the playoffs come April. That’s a lot of ifs, and I certainly don’t blame any fan who would rather the team take the reverse action and focus on the future, but this week the team, in my opinion at least, played well enough to give fans hoping for success this year the sliver of hope they were looking for.

– Drew Way[/text_output]