LAST SEASON
After going all in on the 2022-23 season, the New York Rangers went a different route with their approach to the 2023-24 season, opting for bargain bin value adds to fill out the depth on their roster in hopes of returning to form. That looked to be the right move during the regular season, as an 18-4-1 start put the team on good footing. While they had a couple of stretches of .500 play at some points of the season, they also had other significant hot streaks (including a 10-game winning streak) to keep them in excellent shape. They found themselves with the Presidents’ Trophy at the end of the regular season.
The Rangers continued that hot play in the playoffs, winning their first seven games by sweeping the Washington Capitals and taking a 3-0 lead against the Carolina Hurricanes. The Canes gave them a bit of a scare by winning two straight, but New York closed it out in six games to advance to the Eastern Conference Final for the second time in three seasons. Unfortunately, the success would end there, as after taking a 2-1 series lead over the Florida Panthers with overtime wins in Games 2 & 3, the Panthers won three straight games to finish the job en route to their first Stanley Cup, leaving the Rangers empty-handed.
The Rangers took a similar approach to their 2024 offseason by not making any notable changes to the team, mostly just shuffling the deck chairs and replacing the players going out the door adequately. Once again, the Rangers are betting on their core of Artemi Panarin, Mika Zibanejad, Adam Fox, Chris Kreider and Vincent Trocheck to do the job, but will this be the year that the Rangers can turn regular season success into a Stanley Cup?
KEY ADDITIONS & DEPARTURES
Additions
Reilly Smith, RW
Sam Carrick, C
Casey Fitzgerald, D
Adam Erne, LW (PTO)
Departures
Alex Wennberg, C (SJ)
Jack Roslovic, C (Car)
Erik Gustafsson, D (Det)
Blake Wheeler, RW (UFA)
Barclay Goodrow, C (SJ)
OFFENSE
The Rangers finished the 2023-24 regular season with the seventh-best offense (3.39 goals per game) and the third-best power play (26.4%), but like their offense in previous seasons, that was a bit of a paper tiger. Under the hood, they were only 17th in 5v5 shot attempts for per 60 minutes (59.83) and tied for 21st in 5v5 expected goals for per 60 (2.51), which was tied with the bottom-five finishing Montreal Canadiens. That’s not exactly good company to keep for driving your offense.
The key to the success of the Rangers’ offense was the aforementioned core of five players. The MVP of that group was Panarin, who managed a career-high of 49 goals and 120 points, and probably would have been a Hart nominee in any other season but last years. Fox was also a key cog in that system, with 73 points as a defenseman despite missing 10 games. Trocheck had a career-high 77 points, while Kreider nearly equaled his career-high with 75 points. The only disappointment of that group was Zibanejad, who had just 72 points after accumulating 91 in 2022-23.
Beyond that group of five, there isn’t a ton of secondary scoring option for the Rangers. Alexis Lafreniere had a breakout year with 57 points, Erik Gustafsson had 31 but departed to free agency, while K’Andre Miller managed 30, which was a step back from 43 the year prior, but that was the extent of New York’s notable producers, as only four other players hit 20 points and five others hit 10 points. Filip Chytil will likely change that if he plays more than 10 games this year, and Reilly Smith should round out that top six with another scoring winger, but Sam Carrick is the only other notable addition and he had just 16 points.
The Rangers’ top six is one of the most well-rounded in the league, and Fox and Miller are quite productive from the blueline, but like past seasons, there’s a lot of question marks beyond that. Even with getting a lifeline from the San Jose Sharks after they claimed Barclay Goodrow’s contract for nothing, the Rangers still haven’t found a way to fill out their depth more adequately. They’ll have to hope that they can find some options on the trade market again come March, otherwise an offense that could already be shutdown by Cup contending teams in the playoffs might be even easier to dismantle.
DEFENSE
The Rangers’ defensive numbers were the same as their offense both in terms of results and the underlying metrics. Their goals against per game was 7th in the league (2.76) and their penalty kill was third in the league (84.5%), but they were only 16th in the league in shot attempts against per 60 (58.77), and their expected goals against per 60 was 19th (2.68). We’ll dive deeper into why that was the case in the next section, but much like their offense, the Rangers were middle of the pack in terms of actually preventing chances and propped up by things out of their control.
At least, that’s the case when Fox isn’t on the ice. When he’s on the ice for the Rangers, it’s a completely different team. His +7 defensive goals above replacement not only led the team by a considerable margin, but also ranked 10th among defensemen in the league. He’s one of the best defensemen in the league for a reason, and his impact on this team goes a bit more under the radar in comparison to Panarin and Igor Shesterkin. Beyond him, there aren’t really a ton of players on the team who make a big impact defensively, with only Will Cuylle (2.6), Braden Schneider (2.5), Gustafsson and Miller (2.1) finding themselves well above 1 defensive GAR. Smith should also make for a big impact for this group with his 6.1 defensive GAR.
On the flip side, there are plenty of players with negative impacts from last season, with the biggest culprits being a lot of their top six and top four defense core. I mentioned Fox and Miller as positives, but outside of that, only Trocheck found himself with a positive defensive GAR at 1. Zibanejad was only a -0.1, but Panarin found himself at -1.1, Ryan Lindgren at -1.6, Jacob Trouba at -2.3, Kreider at -2.4, and Lafreniere at a team-worst -3.9. They’re moving on from another culprit in Wheeler (-1.8), but you also lose a positive impact in Gustafsson, and Carrick is an addition that doesn’t move the needle too much in the bottom six with a -2.2.
Ultimately, this team has four options in their top two lines for forwards and defense that appear to be reliable defensively, and even if you split them up equally, that’s still a lot of weight on their shoulders. Otherwise, they’ll need to make a big change to either group to see some improvement or pray that big names like Panarin and Zibanejad can start to play better defensively.
GOALTENDING
A big reason why the Rangers’ defensive issues last season weren’t nearly as much of a problem as it should have been was due to the play of their goaltenders, although it wasn’t always consistent. Shesterkin’s .913% save percentage and 17.36 goals saved above expected aren’t nearly as flashy as they have been in past seasons, but when he was on his game, that usually meant the Rangers were winning. When he faltered, Jonathan Quick had a resurgence as the backup with a .911% save% and 12.82 GSAx, playing at a level we haven’t seen from him in a while to hold down the fort during Shesterkin’s struggles.
The two of them worked really well together, and will be back together this season for a second go of things. Shesterkin should be expected to perform at a top-five level like he usually does, meaning he’ll most likely be even better than he was last season. If there’s any concerns with this tandem, it’s that Quick is 38-going-on-39 and plays a very athletic style. That’s slowed him down for most of the last six seasons, so it’s possible that he falls back a bit to that level. However, whatever the Rangers lose in value from Quick’s decline, Shesterkin’s bounce back should more than make up for it.
COACHING
Peter Laviolette returns for his second season behind the bench after he seemingly gave the Rangers new life. The team saw a seven-point improvement under Laviolette and went from ninth to first in the league, and after a disappointing first-round loss in 2023, they went back to the Eastern Conference Final last season, all resulting in him finishing fourth in Jack Adams voting. But, as we’ve seen with a lot of the analysis, a lot of that was less on the impact of Laviolette’s coaching, and more to do with the goaltending and the power play personnel.
With more teams in the Metropolitan seeing significant improvement in the offseason, they’ll certainly be in a tighter race in their division and won’t have as easy of a first-round matchup as they did last year with the Capitals. We saw the same thing from previous head coach Gerard Gallant, excelling in his first season but then taking a step back once the division got competitive. This season will look to put Laviolette’s coaching ability to the test, and see if he still has the same magic that won him a Stanley Cup nearly 20 years ago.
ROOKIES
While Gabe Perreault highlights the Rangers’ prospect system and will be a big-impact player for the team once he makes it, that won’t be this year as he returns to the NCAA. Instead, if New York gets any sort of a youth insurgence to their forward group, it will likely be to the more seasoned Brennan Othmann or Brett Berard, with Othmann even getting a few games with the Rangers last year. That will be where they want to find some help from their prospect pool as the team looks to solidify their forward depth. As far as their defense and goaltending go, I wouldn’t expect any of their big prospects to crack the roster full-time this season, especially with 2024 first-round pick E.J. Emery set to return to the NCAA as well.
BURNING QUESTIONS
1. Can the Rangers be more than a team that relies on their power play and goaltending? In the three seasons that the Rangers have been a playoff contender again, they have the 12th-worst 5v5 xGF per 60, are tied for the 13th-worst 5v5 xGA per 60, and have the 10th-worst 5v5 xG share overall. But they also have the 8th-best 5v5 save percentage and the 6th-best PP GF per 60 in that same span, and it’s a big reason for their consistent success. Don’t get me wrong, those are important things to be good at, but it can only get you so far without the ability to drive play, and when they eventually face a team that’s good at both sides of the coin, they crumble. They’ll need to take that next step to be a truly elite contender.
2. Can Mika Zibanejad return to form? I’ve always been a bit skeptical of Zibanejad as a true top-line center in the NHL. He’s certainly a top-six center with his production, but in terms of his ability to drive play, he’s at best breaking even in the 48-52% range for expected goal share and at worst getting outplayed drastically in the 45% range. He could at least outscore those problems in past seasons, but last season saw him produce just 26 goals and 72 points in 81 games. When you consider that 46.15% of his goals and 43.06% of his points last season came on the power play as well, it really looks like he didn’t provide a lot of value at even strength. The Rangers will need him to find some way to impact the game at 5v5, especially in the playoffs, if they want to try and compete for a Stanley Cup.
3. What is the next step for Alexis Lafreniere? Lafreniere was starting to look like a surefire bust after being selected first overall in 2020 and failing to break the 40-point mark through three seasons. But last season, he finally got a shot in the top six alongside Panarin and Trocheck and broke out for 28 goals and 57 points. That’s still not quite first-overall value, but it’s a big uptick from his previous play. He’s going to get the playing time from here on out, but does he have even more progression in him to be the Rangers’ secret weapon this season?
PREDICTIONS
I think my analysis of the Rangers in this preview (and even my feelings on them throughout all of last season during mine and Mike Gould’s power rankings) should indicate that I’m a lot more bearish on this team than most people will be. However, I can certainly recognize that they have the talent to be a playoff team and possibly even give themselves a home-ice advantage for a round or two in the playoffs. But, they lack that 5v5 play that some other Cup contenders have, and while I think Smith is just what that forward group needs, they still need to take big strides before I’m convinced that they can contend for the Cup. Ultimately, I think they’ll have another fantastic regular season and maybe even look good to start the playoffs, but they’ll eventually match up against a team that can match them on special teams and in the net and have the play-driving ability to finish them off, barring any big changes.