Tag: mika zibanejad

Rangers dominant win validates Kids ‘belong on the ice’

This is what it often looks like when a Peewee AA team from Westchester somehow winds up in the same tournament bracket as a AAA team from Massachusetts.

Carnage on Ice.

So it was at the Garden on Sunday when Rangers-Predators immediately devolved into the kind of mismatch that might have given Barry Trotz pause about accepting the invitation to replace David Poile as Nashville’s general manager as he watched from a press box suite.

The Rangers took six shots between 2:37 and 13:36 of the first period. They all went in, starting netminder Kevin Lankinen allowing four goals before long-man Juuse Saros failed to stop the first two shots he faced.

In the newspaper business, “30” symbolizes the end of a story. In the hockey business on Broadway, “6” sufficed.

“It was not in our heads to get to double digits or anything like that,” Mika Zibanejad said after the 7-0 victory that extended the club’s shutout streak to 150:51 and its winning streak to four. “It’s a tough situation, I’m not sure anyone has a really good answer on how it feels to play a game like this, but I think the focus is to maintain good habits and not get lazy.


Filip Chytil of the Rangers moves the puck down ice during the third period against the Predators on Sunday.
Robert Sabo for NY Post

“You might try something a little bit different if you want to work on something, but you want to continue to play the right way so you can bring that into the next game.”

The Predators, on their way to a playoff miss, were decimated by injury. Ryan McDonagh and Roman Josi were sidelined on the back end. Filip Forsberg and Ryan Johansen were among the missing up front. At least Trotz was able to get an up-close-and-personal look at a number of kids in the system.

In addition to the victory, which gave the Rangers an 8-2-1 record in their last 11 games, there was actually tangible reward in this one. It was not just an exercise in running it out. Indeed, to hear Filip Chytil tell it, this one was a significant one for him and linemates Alexis Lafreniere and Kaapo Kakko to reaffirm their value to this loaded lineup.

“Our top-six has top-top players, so our ice time as a line has gone down the last number of games,” No. 72 told The Post. “This game, with the score, we just rolled our lines so that gave us more time.

“That’s very huge for our confidence and our calmness with the puck.”

Chytil opened the goal-scoring parade by splitting the defense before flicking a forehand past Lankinen at 2:37, 15 seconds after the netminder would make his only save of the night against Braden Schneider. The goal not only ignited a deluge, but it was the first in 19 games for Chytil, who hadn’t scored since Feb. 8.

“I have been staying on and working after almost all the practices,” Chytil said. “This is a confidence boost.”

The Kids’ ice time has taken a hit with the addition of Vladimir Tarasenko and Patrick Kane to the top-six and the subsequent construction of the Jimmy Vesey-Barclay Goodrow-Tyler Motte fourth line that has a spot in head coach Gerard Gallant’s rotation.

But in this one, Chytil was on for 15:16, Lafreniere — who has not scored in his last six games — for 14:40 and Kakko — 0 for his last 11 — for 14:10. That included a power-play spin as a unit. The lads did not score again, but they made the most of their opportunity by impressing Gallant.


Rangers
Rangers right wing Kaapo Kakko (24) skates with the puck against Nashville Predators on Sunday.
AP

“They deserved it tonight,” the head coach said. “I like to see them take it. It’s not about me giving it to them, it’s about them taking it.

“They really played [well]. It was their best game in a while.”Gallant’s words should be music to Chytil’s ears. For the 23-year-old center had said just about the same thing from a player’s perspective just a few minutes earlier. The Kids aren’t looking for a handout.

“You have to understand, of course, the kind of players we brought in. They are here to help us win the Cup,” said Chytil, who had scored 11 goals in the 13 games immediately preceding the extended drought. “But we want to show that we belong on the ice. We want to prove that we can contribute to the team.

“We want to keep working as hard as we did before when we had a little more time. We want to help the team win. We want to show we deserve to be on the ice.

“That gives us motivation to earn ice time.”

Check out our Latest News and Follow us at Facebook

Original Source

Patrick Kane scores 1st goal as Ranger in win over Canadiens

MONTREAL — The hope was that a full lineup would provide a clearer visual of what the Rangers really look like with their newest addition, Patrick Kane, but it only revealed just how much work they still have to do as a team.

Facing a Canadiens team that is in last place in the Atlantic Division and well out of the playoff picture, the Rangers barely escaped with two points after Mika Zibanejad was the lone goal scorer in the shootout, which secured a 4-3 win Thursday night at Bell Centre.

The list of excuses has quickly dwindled for the Rangers.

Sure, they’re still without Ryan Lindgren, whose absence proves time and time again that the Rangers are not the same team without him.

And Tyler Motte is still unavailable with an apparent head injury, leaving the fourth line without one of its speediest and peskiest members.

They were also away from game action for four days, so that could’ve played into some of their lapses, too.


Mika Zibanejad scores the game-winning shootout goal to give the Rangers a 4-3 win over the Canadiens.
AP

Patrick Kane accepts congratulations after scoring his first goal as a Ranger in their 4-3 shootout win over the Canadiens.
USA TODAY Sports

Between their poor transition game, their looseness in the defensive zone and Igor Shesterkin’s lingering inability to come up with that clutch save, however, the Rangers have a number of areas to focus on for which Kane and Vladimir Tarasenko cannot act as a Band-Aid.

Shesterkin, who finished with 23 saves, did make the last big stop in the shootout, however, to help secure the victory.

Still, this matchup with the Canadiens was a competitive one.

Overlooking the fact that Montreal is without a few of its top players, the Rangers were able to answer each Habs goal with one of their own through the first two periods.

The Canadiens took a 2-1 lead into the second period, but Jacob Trouba scored 48 seconds into the middle frame after the Rangers captain was allowed to skate into the right faceoff circle uncontested and wrist the puck past Montreal’s netminder Sam Montembeault.


Alexis Lafrenierre scores a first-period goal on Sam Montembeault as Mike Matheson defends during the Rangers’ victory.
AP

Momentum should’ve swung further in the Rangers favor when Rem Pitlick was called for delay of game later in the period.

Instead, Kane mishandled the puck on the power play and sent the Habs the other way before Josh Anderson buried a shorthanded breakaway goal.

The newest Ranger, however, made up for it just over a minute later.

Sniping the puck from the top of the left faceoff circle, Kane knotted the game at three-all and subsequently let out an emphatic fist pump.


Josh Anderson scores a goal on Igor Shesterkin during the Rangers’ win.
AP

Kane had an eventful third game with the Blueshirts, recording an assist on Trouba’s 2-2 score in addition to his own goal.

He also took a slashing penalty late in the final frame that could’ve been detrimental.

The Rangers may have had a full complement of 18 skaters for the first time since Feb. 25, but it didn’t make the immediate impact on their overall play the way it was supposed to.

Even with K’Andre Miller back on defense, after the 23-year-old blueliner was suspended for three games, the Rangers defensive structure was full of holes and backdoor opportunities — as it has been the last couple weeks.

That much was evident right off the bat.

The Canadiens scored 35 seconds into the game when player after player cycled through the Rangers zone before Kaiden Guhle batted the puck past Shesterkin.

Check out our Latest News and Follow us at Facebook

Original Source

Rangers’ K’Andre Miller ends uneven night with go-ahead goal

After cycling the puck in the corner with the game tied at three-all in the third period, K’Andre Miller watched as Kaapo Kakko dished it out to Mika Zibanejad, who was covering for the defenseman at the top of the zone.

As Zibanejad wound up to unleash a shot, Miller went to screen Pyotr Kochetkov and ended up getting his stick on the puck to redirect it to the top shelf on Carolina’s goalie.

Miller’s goal was one of three that the Rangers scored in the final 20 minutes of their eventual 5-3 win over the Hurricanes on Tuesday night at Madison Square Garden.

The game-winning goal capped a mixed bag of a night for Miller, who — along with his defensive partner Jacob Trouba — was also on the ice for all three of the Hurricanes’ goals.

Mika Zibanejad (right) congratulates K’Andre Miller on his go-ahead goal in the Rangers’ 5-3 win over the Hurricanes.
Getty Images

“Obviously, you never want to go into a period minus-three, but that’s hockey, that happens sometimes,” Miller said after the win, which improved the Rangers to 21-12-6 on the season. “I think having a short memory and trying to put it in the past and look for good plays and being reliable again.”

The 22-year-old Miller, who was a forward in his earlier playing days, admitted it was weird to be the player tipping the puck in instead of his usual role of sending it into traffic. Nevertheless, the goal was Miller’s third of the season, all of which have come in the last 13 games.

“It was a big goal,” head coach Gerard Gallant said. “They were probably not too happy with being on for three goals, but I’m not blaming them for the three goals, it’s a five-man unit out there. They were unfortunate situations where the puck went in our net. It was a huge goal for K’Andre. I thought he made a couple of great offensive plays and played a good solid game again.”

With three goals in the third period Tuesday night, the Rangers have now totaled 52 in the final 20 minutes this season, which is the third-most in the NHL.

Igor Shesterkin earned the starting nod, marking his 29th start of the Rangers’ 39 games this season. After stopping 20 of the 23 shots he faced to pick up his 18th win of the season, the Russian netminder is now tied with the Golden Knights’ Logan Thomas and the Jets’ Connor Hellebuyck for the second-most in the NHL behind only the Bruins’ Linus Ullmark’s 21.

Check out our Latest News and Follow us at Facebook

Original Source

What has gone wrong for the Rangers power play?

The narrative that had taken hold since Gerard Gallant’s reign behind the bench started last season — and for good reason — is inoperative.

The Rangers who were insufficient at five-on-five and were carried offensively by the power play have ceased to exist.

Instead, the remodeled Blueshirts, who used 40 different game-opening line combinations in the club’s first 35 games leading into the wonderfully civilized Christmas recess, rank comparatively higher playing at even strength than with the man advantage.

No one would have expected that.

By the way, Gallant created 33 line combinations in last season’s first 35 matches. Neither that total nor this season’s tally includes units that were combined mid-game. So the Artemi Panarin-Mika Zibanejad-Vitali Kravtsov and Barclay Goodrow-Jonny Brodzinski-Julien Gauthier combinations that played the final two-plus periods of the 5-3 victory over the Islanders on Dec. 22 are not included in the count.

The 411 on 5-on-5

Artemi Panarin and the Rangers have become a better even-strength team in 2022-23.
NHLI via Getty Images

The 2021-22 Rangers improved their five-on-five game proximate to the trade deadline with the rental additions of Frank Vatrano, Andrew Copp, Tyler Motte and defenseman Justin Braun. The club’s production and efficiency improved.

But before Vatrano was acquired as the first of the fortifications following Game 60, the Blueshirts ranked 24th in the NHL at five-on-five in goals-per-60:00 at 2.26 (thanks, Natural Stat Trick). They ranked 28th in xGF (expected goals-for) percentage at 45.85, and their goals-for percentage of 50 percent (111 for, 111 against) came in at 17th.

Hence, the flurry of trades that cost the Blueshirts one first-round draft pick, one second-rounder, one third-rounder, a pair of fourth-rounders and Morgan Barron, but also propelled the club to the conference finals.

This season, without any of the rentals and also without free-agent departure Ryan Strome, the Rangers will enter Tuesday night’s Garden match against the Caps ranked 12th in goals-per-60 at 2.66 and 15th in xGF pct. at 51.16. Their goals-for pct. of 53.96 (75 for, 64 against) ranks eighth.

So, despite splitting up Zibanejad and Chris Kreider and also having stopped trying to bang the Panarin-Vincent Trocheck peg of a connection into a round hole (or perhaps, because of these unanticipated moves), the Blueshirts have taken significant strides in their five-on-five game … and that is while receiving average goaltending for the first couple of months.

Nothing special about this power play

With Mika Zibanejad sniping away, the Rangers power play has become predictable.
NHLI via Getty Images

These results may not alter Drury’s approach to the deadline — at or around which everyone expects the Rangers to add a known-quantity top-six right wing — but it represents improvement and good news.

Neither of which applies to the allegedly vaunted power play.

After ranking fourth overall last season while operating at a 25.2 percent clip with a dynamic group that was feared, the Rangers sit at 15th at the break with a 22.9 percent rate that has provoked tears. That is simply not close to good enough for a unit expected to be a game-breaker.

The four-righty concept has been in place since Thanksgiving of 2019, when then-head coach David Quinn constructed a unit including Zibanejad, Panarin, Strome and Tony DeAngelo with the lefty Kreider. That unit went off at a clip of 29.3 percent from the Christmas break to the COVID-related March 11 end of the season.

Vincent Trocheck, celebrating a power-play goal against the Devils on Dec. 12, is much more shoot-first than Ryan Strome was.
USA TODAY Sports

Righty Adam Fox replaced DeAngelo at the top at the start of the following season. That unit remained inviolate until Trocheck, another righty, stepped in for Strome at the start of this season.

But with familiarity, the unit has become more predictable and even occasionally stale, even if Panarin and Zibanejad essentially exchanged places against the Islanders last week with No. 10 moving into the off-wing, left-circle, one-timer position that he originally held upon joining the team in 2019-20. The puck often moves too slowly. The setups are often too deliberate and at times telegraphed.

Strome was more of a facilitator while Trocheck has a shoot-first mentality out of the bumper position. Indeed, Trocheck is tied with Panarin in power-play shot attempts, trailing Zibanejad, while second in shots to Zibanejad. That’s a change.

Chris wires crossed

But the most dramatic change as the season has evolved concerns Kreider, who led the NHL last season with a franchise-record 26 power-play goals on his way to a 52-goal season. The league’s most effective net-front presence hasn’t gotten anywhere near the touches he did both last season and through the first 20 games of this season when the unit pretty much ran through him.

Chris Kreider battles for position in front of the Penguins goal during a game on Dec. 20.
NHLI via Getty Images

Over the first 10 games, Kreider had 28 attempts on the power play and 15 shots while being credited by Natural Stat Trick with creating 21 scoring chances. Over the next 10 matches, Kreider had 16 attempts and 12 shots while creating 16 scoring chances. So, through 20 games, Kreider had 44 attempts and 27 shots while creating 37 scoring chances and recording four PPGs.

But over the next 15 games that led into the break, the Rangers have either been unable to get the puck to Kreider either screening the goaltender or at the side of the net, or they have changed the game plan. In the past 15 games, Kreider has only 10 power-play attempts and five shots while generating nine scoring chances. He has gone 18 straight games without a PPG.

New York Post

The difference is dramatic.

Maybe opposing penalty kills are preventing the guys at the top from getting shots through to Kreider. Maybe Trocheck’s increased shooting mentality as he has gained more comfort on the unit has changed the dynamic. Maybe defensemen are doing a better job preventing Kreider from getting position. Maybe Kreider hasn’t done as good a job establishing that net-front presence. Maybe the Rangers fell head over heels for Zibanejad’s one-timer.

Some of all of the above? Probably. But the fact is that over the past 15 games, Kreider ranks eighth on the team in power-play attempts per 60:00. Something is off there. It is imperative the Rangers get Kreider more involved. Everyone benefits when he gets his touches around the net.

Check out our Latest News and Follow us at Facebook

Original Source

Rangers’ Mika Zibanejad ‘learned a lot’ through early playoff struggles

So much has been made of the Rangers’ young core of players and the experience they gained during the playoffs, but the club’s 29-year-old No. 1 center learned a thing or two about himself as well.

Mika Zibanejad led the Blueshirts with 24 points over 20 postseason games and still went through a learning curve of his own, particularly in the first-round series against the Penguins. Tied to a matchup with Pittsburgh’s top unit of Sidney Crosby, Jake Guentzel and Bryan Rust, Zibanejad allowed his opponents to dictate his play through the first few games, which limited his offensive output and overall impact on the ice.

That first series took a sharp turn when Jacob Trouba’s booming hit knocked Crosby out of half of Game 5 and all of Game 6, but it also allowed for Zibanejad to step away from the matchup and get back to playing his game. He went from four points through the first five games to 20 (10 goals, 10 assists) over the next 15 contests, which included six multi-point performances amid more matchups against some of the top lines in the NHL.

Mika Zibanejad
Robert Sabo

“I think it kind of got in my head,” Zibanejad told The Post on Sunday afternoon in Tarrytown. “I worried about it too much. I think I made it a bigger deal than I should’ve the first couple games. You saw what happened the rest of it, obviously. The most important thing was for us as a team to win that series — and we did so. I know all the guys were helpful and especially the guy sitting next to me [Chris Kreider], obviously being in that matchup, too.

“It’s helpful. I think it’s helpful to go through that, to understand to just be able to trust myself that I can play and try to play my game more than trying to adjust my game to someone else. Even though Sidney Crosby, I grew up watching him and everything, so I know what he’s done. I know how good he is and whatnot, but I think maybe a bigger deal than it should’ve been. I think starting from me.

“Be able to turn around and use that as a learning experience. I think that’s what every day in the NHL is, doesn’t matter how old you are. You get more experience, and you learn to handle those situations when they come.”

In acknowledging there has to be a balance between being respectful and remaining competitive, Zibanejad said it’s important not to lose sight of what he’s capable of and what his opponents should be afraid of. And as a player who brings a lethal one-timer to the Rangers’ top power-play unit, puck distributing abilities on the rush and much more, other teams shouldn’t have a choice but to be aware.

There’s no question Zibanejad is one of the most dynamic and most effective play-driving centers in the NHL, but maintaining that mentality and playing to it throughout the 82-game schedule and on the playoff stage is the other half of the battle.

“Mika can show too much respect sometimes to people and he forgets about how good he is,” head coach Gerard Gallant said. “I think that was the biggest step for him last year, was knowing how good and important he was to our team.”

Mika Zibanejad practices with the Rangers on Sunday.
Robert Sabo

Added Kreider of his longest-tenured teammate: “He’s one of the best players in the league, whether or not he believes it. I tell him all the time, it doesn’t necessarily matter how you’re feeling. You can not necessarily have that self-belief and that confidence, but we all have that confidence in you.”

To Kreider, who probably knows No. 93 better than most, the whole notion that Zibanejad needs to play with more swagger speaks to who he is as a person. There is nothing egotistical about the way Zibanejad carries himself. He’s soft spoken and humble. It’s easy for that kind of personality to get caught up in the competition.

Still, Zibanejad’s experience during the playoffs opened his eyes to how he needs to be to play like the top center he is.

“If I had that swagger, I don’t know if I would have been the person I am today,” he said. “It’s hard to kind of change personalities, for sure. That’s not who I am and that’s not what I am. I don’t like to see it that way. Obviously, I want to compete against them. But If I can’t compete against myself to try to get better and beat my own records or my own stuff that I’m trying to develop, then how am I ever going to be able to compete with those kinds of guys? That’s not for me to say, that’s not for me to compare and draw the comparison between me and someone else. If I tried to do that, I think that takes away from what I’m supposed to do. I think it’s also the mindset of not being satisfied.

“I think I just learned a lot about myself as a person, as a player and how I deal with things and how I can deal with things going forward.”

Check out our Latest News and Follow us at Facebook

Original Source

How Rangers can win Game 2 against Hurricanes

The Rangers played a game they could have won on Wednesday, and everything they’ve said about the 2-1 overtime loss to the Hurricanes in Game 1 of this second-round series has reflected that fact.

They controlled play for 40 minutes, and it looked like that would be enough to escape PNC Arena with a 1-0 lead in the series until Sebastian Aho finally got one past Igor Shesterkin with 2:23 to go. Despite the unpleasant reality of the loss, coupled with the Hurricanes finding a groove in the final period of regulation, the tone emanating from coach Gerard Gallant and his players has been positive. 

Gallant pointed out to reporters on Thursday that Carolina had dominated the last two matchups between these teams in their building, and was right in saying that this one felt different.

Reality, though, has a way of kicking you in the teeth. And the Rangers still woke up on Thursday needing to overcome a deficit to keep their season alive, just days after having successfully done just that against the Penguins.

Check out our Latest News and Follow us at Facebook

Original Source

Exit mobile version