HELPING HANDS
Expectations are in the eyes of the beholders, but the simple truth is that you can expect the Rangers to play a system meant to protect them and minimize their deficiencies as opposed to one that illuminates and exacerbates them.
“Checks and balances is probably the best way to put it,” Kevin Shattenkirk said following Sunday’s practice, as he gave a broad-strokes explanation of David Quinn’s scheme. “If one guy gets beaten, the layers we have in the defensive zone should be able to compensate for that, not that you ever want to lose too many of your own battles.
“In the system that we had here last year, there was more chasing to create outnumbered situations and a lot of times we were spread out more and exposed more. Now it’s more of a five-man unit where we’re closer together and have more support. That should benefit us getting out and through the neutral zone with a quicker, betterpaced transition as opposed to last year where we were looking for a lot of long passes, high flips.”
Alain Vigneault’s system did not hold back the Rangers in 2014, 2015 or 2016. That should be made clear. But as the team’s circumstance changed, as certain players began to decline, the system remained essentially the same. Coaches, every bit as much as athletes, have a responsibility to adapt. There wasn’t a whole lot of adapting from behind the bench the past couple of years as the team broke down repeatedly in defensive-zone coverage and its ability to coherently clear the zone.
“It’s not whether a system is good or bad, it’s whether a system is right for a particular team,” Henrik Lundqvist said. “I think this way protects us a little bit more if we’re not all at the top of our game. The old way was really good when we were winning every battle, but there could be a lot of confusion playing our man-on-man when we lost them.
“This creates more of a safety net. There is a lot more focus on the middle of the ice and on defensemen being in front of the net. So far, I think it’s gone pretty well.”
Of course, the system has not yet been tested any more than the Rangers have been. Practices have been challenging, more challenging than the preseason games, actually, but the training wheels have been on all along. The Presidents’ Trophy-winning Predators at the Garden on Thursday won’t be the Flyers in Philly in last Thursday’s exhibition finale, that’s for sure. Neither will be the Sabres in Buffalo on Saturday nor the Hurricanes in Raleigh the following night.
Decisions will have to be made quickly and under duress. Switches will have to be called alertly as players hand over their checks to teammates. There are going to be mistakes. The trick will be in not repeating them, at first, too often, and then not at all.
“The centers have a lot of responsibility on the switches,” said Shattenkirk, who said the system is similar to the one he played successfully for years in St. Louis. “Like anything, we’re going to need a lot of repetition to get this down so that it becomes second-nature and we can play on instinct.
“Practice and video are important, but you can only get something down by working at it in games.”
Quinn is not attempting to reinvent the wheel in his first season as an NHL head coach. The forecheck — essentially first forward on the body, second on the puck, third to read — seems relatively standard, though of course with wrinkles. The same generally applies to the 1-1-3 approach in the neutral zone where the Rangers will attempt to aggressively angle the opposition to New York’s strong side.
“It’s not just taking angles, it’s taking good angles,” Shattenkirk said. “There are habits that creeped into our game that need to be changed. There’s a lot of detail here. We need to pay attention to it. The system can make it easier, but it’s on us to perform.”