Blueshirts still facing problems
LISTEN, when a team has all of four victories nearly four weeks and 13 games into the season, it is impossible to discount any single one of them, and why would you ever want to try?
The Rangers deserve credit for their 6-4 victory over Vegas on Tuesday night at the Garden just a few miles north of the lower Manhattan terror that had been on the minds of the players as they prepared for the match.
This one struck home, with enough of the Blueshirts residents of the affected neighborhood to make the issue a very personal one, just as the Golden Knights felt it when their city was targeted by a gunman on Oct. 1.
But this isn’t about conferring hero status on the Blueshirts, who, truth be told, have traditionally conducted themselves as first-class citizens of our city, regardless of their place in the standings. This isn’t about the power of sports or a sports team to heal civic and national wounds.
This is about hockey, which the Rangers are still struggling to master even in the aftermath of Tuesday’s four-goal third period that wiped out a 4-2 deficit. And this largely is about the deficiency management was certain it had addressed in the offseason but apparently did not. That would be the defense. Buying out noble Dan Girardi and replacing him with free-agent signee Kevin Shattenkirk was supposed to take care of a lot of the issues the Blueshirts had in getting out of their zone the last couple seasons. Newsflash: It did not.
Though Shattenkirk played one of his sharpest games against a Golden Knights team that outskated and outworked the Blueshirts through substantial portions of the first two periods, No. 22 has been consistently delinquent in his own zone. In fact, worse than Girardi.
Maybe Shattenkirk, who does lend a presence to the dangerous first power-play unit that scored twice in the third period against fourth-string goaltender Maxime Lagace, is putting added pressure on himself playing in his hometown, but he simply has to be better on his rush reads and deepzone coverage.
Keeping impending free agent Brendan Smith off the market and in a Blueshirt in the wake of a stout performance through the playoffs was supposed to solidify the right side. It hasn’t. Smith has not come close to resembling the effective, edgy player he was following his acquisition from the Red Wings a day before the trade deadline.
Smith, who was a healthy scratch from the third and fourth games of the season, could find himself back in street clothes for Thursday’s match in Tampa Bay against the Lightning if coach Alain Vigneault’s third-period deployment provides a hint.
For No. 42, who was simply dreadful on the right side paired with Ryan McDonagh, got only two brief third-period shifts worth 34 seconds and did not get off the bench for the final 15:09. This was a fitting response from the still employed Alain Vigneault, given that Smith played to an absurd 24.2 Corsi (8 attempts for/25 against) paired with the captain (24.3, 9/28) while matched primarily against the Jonathan MarchessaultWilliam Karlsson-(brother) Reilly Smith line.
The hockey world knows that president Glen Sather, assistant GM Jim Schoenfeld, advisor Doug Risebrough and pro scout Gilles Leger were in Ottawa for Monday’s CanadiensSenators match. The execs could not have been more conspicuous. The sensible takeaway was that the Rangers were doing due diligence on Alex Galchenyuk, the 23-year-old with first-line center skill/potential who has been toiling on the wing in a bottom-six role. The Blueshirts are also known to like wild-card forward Andrew Shaw.
Sources have told The Post that Chris Kreider is not on the table and neither is J.T. Miller. Does that mean Mats Zuccarello would have to go? Or would the Canadiens insist on Brady Skjei as the central piece of the return for Galchenyuk?
By the way, the narrative from Montreal that the Rangers would do anything they can to get Max Pacioretty? Why, exactly, when the winger did next to nothing while creating no impact in last year’s six-game first round?
But further to the mix, the Rangers have been better at center than they have been on defense, even if it wasn’t supposed to be that way. So as the Blueshirts move forward and attempt to build off this pleasing victory, management’s mandate might be to fix the blue line and not obsess over the middle.