TIME IS NOW
Blueshirts need to make up minds & speed up fire sale
SAN JOSE, Calif. — These are dangerous days for the Rangers, who in living down to everyone’s lowest expectations of them face a critical time of reckoning halfway through this challenging four-game trip that moved here from LA on Sunday and then heads back down to Anaheim on Thursday.
Simply, with the team only 11 games in but a soberingly accurate 3-7-1 depiction of their play despite a handful of good tries, the time is coming for management and the coaching staff to define what they want this season to become. No matter which road they choose to travel, it is going to be painful. For a second straight year, there is going to be upheaval.
There is inherent trust in David Quinn, the coach who was lured to Broadway from Commonwealth Ave. in order to develop young players and create a workmanlike attitude. The results thus far have seemed to frustrate Quinn to no end. Interruptions/corrections during practices have increased. The coach, after heaping a bit too much praise on his team for staying close in losing performances, quickly turned to lambasting the club after its defeats in Chicago and to the Kings.
Optimism that this collection of mixed parts — some young, some much older, some part of the future plan and others merely seat-warmers — could hang in on at least the periphery of the playoff picture until at least mid-winter has given way to reality. The Rangers have lost contact with the group, already six points back. Truth is, they seem destined to compete with the Red Wings for the league’s worst overall record and the best odds at landing projected game-changing franchise center Jack Hughes of the USA Hockey national team development program.
The team’s immediate plight might be discouraging, but it could also be liberating. It should refocus attention on the season’s mission statement, which, in so many words, is that 2019-20 (and 2020-21) rates higher priority than 2018-19. Quinn must not lose sight of that and neither must general manager Jeff Gorton.
But as the big-picture crystalizes, there is the risk of things going completely off the rails if the veterans who know they are on the way out by the Feb. 25 deadline even unconsciously spin off on their own individual programs. We are not calling out anybody here or questioning anyone’s professionalism rather than merely thinking about the human element of things.
If this evolves the way it could, and probably will, given this team’s lack of high-end skill and speed, the chances are it will become increasingly difficult for Quinn to get complete investment in the pro- gram from players who have little chance to be here past the Feb. 25 trade deadline. Building for whose future, pending free agents Mats Zuccarello, Kevin Hayes and Adam McQuaid, might wonder?
I’ve talked before about management’s need to declare on a future core. Now I am declaring that it would be in everyone’s best interests for the Rangers to seek to make trades earlier rather than later once they have declared internally on extending or not extending their pending free agents.
Once the Blueshirts know they are not signing Hayes — and chances are that decision has largely been made — they should be aggressive in shopping him when the pool of interested parties might be deeper than at the deadline and clubs are willing to make player-for-player hockey exchanges rather than enter into pure lend-lease operations. The same holds true for Zuccarello, popular a figure as he might be. If management knows he is not going to be here Feb. 26, there is probably little reason for him to be here Nov. 26.
Quinn has to teach, he has to demand accountability and he has to keep things together in a room where some guys are walking through the door under the “enter” sign, some are staring at “exit” and a batch doesn’t know whether they are coming or going.
Again, there is no confusion as to why the Rangers chose Quinn. If he believes Filip Chytil — making less and less of an impression as the frustration level at being unable to score mounts — is best off both in the middle and being kept away from top-six matches, then so be it, have No. 72 center the fourth line. But if Chytil is centering the fourth line only because the top three spots are filled, then Quinn should move Hayes to the wing, even if that might compromise the team on a short-term basis.
Same scenario as it applies to Lias Andersson. If management believes he will thrive by playing for an extended period in the AHL, fine. But if Andersson is in Hartford primarily because short-time veterans are blocking him, that situation must be resolved quickly.
Similarly, Tony DeAngelo earned more ice time off his effort Sunday. Unless there are mitigating circumstances, it is difficult to fathom a hockey reason for keeping DeAngelo in street clothes in order to accommodate veterans. The Rangers need to know.
The calendar is a liar. It may be early 2018-19, but for the Rangers, it is 2019-20. The sooner the staff embraces that, the faster the future will arrive.