Articles in New York Rangers

from Mollie Walker of The New York Post,

The Rangers have had a gusty wind soaring through their sails for weeks, but the Sabres slowed them down Monday night before another injury to a key player threatened the team’s buoyancy.

A 5-1 loss to a feisty Buffalo team — just the Rangers’ fourth defeat in regulation this season — was overshadowed by yet another significant injury when the Blueshirts lost Kaapo Kakko in the second period following an ugly and awkward fall on his left leg.

It was clear it wasn’t the Rangers’ night from puck drop, but the apparent severity of Kakko’s injury only appeared to lengthen the club’s journey toward the end of its near month-long injury battle....

Kakko exited late in the middle frame after a collision with Buffalo defenseman Erik Johnson swept his legs out from underneath him along the boards.

The Finnish wing immediately grabbed at his left knee and squirmed on the ice in apparent pain....

Head coach Peter Laviolette didn’t have an immediate update on Kakko after the loss, saying that the 22-year-old would be evaluated for a lower-body injury and they will know more on Tuesday.

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below watch the injury and game highlights...

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EW YORK (Nov. 25, 2023) – New York Rangers defenseman Jacob Trouba has been fined $5,000, the maximum allowable under the Collective Bargaining Agreement, for high-sticking Boston Bruins forward Trent Frederic during NHL Game No. 308 in New York on Saturday, Nov. 25, the National Hockey League’s Department of Player Safety announced today.

The incident occurred at 2:20 of the second period.

The money goes to the Players’ Emergency Assistance Fund.

watch below

from Molli Walker of the New York Post,

The Rangers did not view this battle with the Bruins as a statement victory.

That is because the Rangers’ entire body of work thus far has been an assertion in itself, one that was only reaffirmed by this 7-4 win over a heavyweight Boston team Saturday afternoon at Madison Square Garden, which lifted the club into first place in the NHL by points percentage.

Forget the Big Bad Bruins.

These are the Big Bad Blueshirts.

Perched on an 11-point lead in the Metropolitan Division, which is a larger differential than between the second-place Capitals and the last-place Blue Jackets, the Rangers have put the NHL on notice.

“I think our guys are going into games expecting to win,” head coach Peter Laviolette said after his team improved to a stunning 15-3-1 record on the season. “Expecting to play a certain way. If we do that, we can see the results.”

For all the arguments that can and have been made about the difficulty — or lack thereof — of the Rangers’ schedule 18 games into the season, there is no disputing what unfolded in Game No. 19 against a defensively sound Boston team.

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Game highlights are below.

from Larry Brooks of the New York Post,

It is two weeks since Filip Chytil left the Nov. 2 game against Carolina late in the second period with what is believed at least the fourth concussion of his young career and has not been back on the ice since suffering delayed effects of an early first-period collision that night with Jesper Fast.

There is concern for this 24-year-old who has been sidelined 10 different times in-season since 2018-19. This does not include his two-week absence from training camp with an unidentified upper-body injury. This does not incorporate the suspected broken cheekbone Chytil sustained while struck in the face with a stick during Team Czechia’s second game in this year’s World Championship tournament, the effects of which lingered deep into the summer, as the center told me the first day of camp.

We do not know whether Chytil is genetically predisposed to concussions. We do know from volumes of evidence that concussions begat concussions, with symptoms and recovery lengths increasing with each injury to the brain.

This last one did not occur because Chytil put himself in a vulnerable position on the ice. Indeed, he looked up, saw Fast in enough time so he was able to diminish the impact of the open-ice collision. No. 72 bounced right up and indeed played eight more shifts before exiting. Still, this.

There is concern for this personable and engaging 24-year-old about his future quality of life. That is the priority.</blockquote>

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Why? Watch below.

from Larry Brooks of the New York Post,

Nine games into the season and the Rangers have established a template of success by becoming, well, by becoming Bizarro Rangers.

There is less flash and not as much dash, though Artemi Panarin might like to have a word about that. There is both attention to detail and patience but no shortcuts. The Rangers have a game plan and they are sticking to it. That apparently includes winning lots and lots of faceoffs.

But that’s not all there is it to it. Because the Blueshirts, 7-2 off a 5-0 road trip entering Thursday night’s match at the home-sweet-home Garden against the Hurricanes, still have Chris Kreider in front on the power play and they still have Adam Fox weaving magic and they still have Igor Shesterkin making game-saving stops and they still have Mika Zibanejad unleashing that one-timer.

But this is a group that is forging its own identity under new coach Peter Laviolette.

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from Larry Brooks of the New York Post,

Systems are necessary. Adjustments are necessary. Structure is a requirement. But it is still the players who determine the outcome. At some point — and probably much sooner than later — outside fascination with Laviolette’s system will fade. And attention will be directed, as always, on the players.

As it was on the Rangers during and following Thursday’s belly flop of a 4-1 defeat to Nashville at the Garden, in which the home boys were a step and a thought slow pretty much from start to finish and lacked the battle level to overcome their sloth.

It wasn’t the system that let down the Rangers; it was the Rangers who let down the system and each other. They could not establish any type of meaningful forecheck. They had issues getting out of their own end. They were disconnected with and without the puck in the neutral zone, while yielding a pair of breakaways and nearly two handfuls of odd-man rushes.

Essentially nothing was close to good enough on this night as the Blueshirts fell to 2-2 in advance of a five-game trip out west that commences in Seattle on Saturday.

From Laviolette’s perspective, the most egregious of the numerous flaws on display was his team’s unsatisfactory compete standard. There is never an excuse for that. That’s why this one stung far more than Saturday’s 5-3 defeat in Columbus in which the team was scattered for the first 40 minutes.

“We had the same problem in Columbus where we gave up too much but in Columbus we competed hard,” Laviolette said. “We attacked the net hard.

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from Larry Brooks of the New York Post,

For each of the last two days, Alexis Lafreniere skated at left wing on what appeared to be third line-type units.

Tuesday, he rotated with Will Cuylle on a line that included Barclay Goodrow in the middle and Tyler Pitlick on the right.

This, though, apparently does not represent a response from head coach Peter Laviolette on No. 13’s largely disappointing play thus far.

Neither does this mean that Laviolette has seen enough of Lafreniere at right wing as the Blueshirts prepare for these back-to-back exhibition matches in New Jersey on Wednesday and at the Garden on Thursday against Boston....

Lafreniere has been ineffective in his three preseason contests, all on the right.

He first skated with Cuylle and Filip Chytil, next with Chris Kreider and Mika Zibanejad and then with Artemi Panarin and Vincent Trocheck.

But Laviolette said that he has not yet made a decision on which wing Lafreniere will open the season.

“I am still wide open,” he said. “And I haven’t said, ‘No, he’s back on the left.’ ”

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from Larry Brooks of the New York Post,

Somehow, K’Andre Miller is already entering his fourth NHL season.

And if Young Amigos Filip Chytil, Kaapo Kakko and Alexis Lafreniere are pushing for more responsibility up front, the same holds true for Miller on the back end for the Rangers.

Except for this: Miller has been entrusted with significant responsibility pretty much from Day 1 in his rookie 2020-21 season.

He has played on the third pair exactly twice, those the second and third games of his NHL career while teamed with Brendan Smith.

Miller settled in quickly with Jacob Trouba on his right and has been one half of the 1A-1B shutdown tandem for the past two years, and was second to Adam Fox last season in average ice time (21:57) while posting personal bests in goals (9), assists (34) and points (43). Maybe next, an assignment on Power Play II?

“I think every player wants that and to be out there and succeed and do what they can to help the team,” Miller said Saturday, when asked if he would like to be granted more responsibility. “I’m just trying to do my job here, push my team to succeed every day and make myself better every day.”

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from Larry Brooks of the New York Post,

...Peter Laviolette surely will not expect Artemi Panarin to play the same way as Tyler Pitlick. But the Rangers’ incoming head coach will hold No. 10 to the same standards he will apply to the putative fourth-liner.

There’s not going to be one way for the elite and another for the common folk. There is, rather, going to be the Rangers Way.

“When it comes to a system, and it’s not always perfect with regard to the details of how that goes, but I do believe a team has to get on the same page,” Laviolette said Wednesday, a day in advance of the club’s first on-ice camp sessions. “That’s my job and responsibility to take a group that at the end of training camp we call the New York Rangers and get them on the same page.”

Asked a hypothetical about a player who might have a tendency to play on the perimeter rather than get in on the forecheck, Laviolette’s response left no room for interpretation.

“That guy will forecheck,” said this coach who believes in puck pursuit and puck pressure.

It’s Day 1 of 2023-24. You can be excused for rolling your eyes. Every incoming head coach pledges to put his stamp on his new team. Every one of them insists he will change the culture. Some do and most don’t.

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from Larry Brooks of the New York Post,

There is no doubt that Peter Laviolette will be a hands-on head coach. That has been one of Laviolette’s hallmarks throughout his 22 years behind an NHL bench. That is one of the qualities that differentiates him from Gerard Gallant, his immediate predecessor as Rangers head coach, who took more of a laissez-faire approach to the job.

The Rangers will notice that from the jump when main training camp opens on Sept. 21. Or maybe individual players already have detected that, if they’ve crossed paths with Laviolette in the corridors of the practice rink during the last week or so while getting onto the ice for informal prep sessions.

Laviolette brings a distinct style to the mix. Incoming assistant coaches Phil Housley, Michael Peca and Dan Muse bring fresh eyes to the equation. Entrenched norms — some of which had their origins under Gallant’s immediate predecessor, David Quinn — may be challenged, if not upended even after this two-year stretch in which the Blueshirts compiled the fifth-best record in the league with 110-point and 107-point seasons, respectively.

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from Larry Brooks of the New York Post,

Maybe if it had been a normal summer. Maybe if it had been a normal training camp. Maybe if the pandemic did not coincide with Alexis Lafreniere’s first-overall selection by the Rangers in 2020, the organization would have done the, well, right thing by immediately moving the lad to right wing in order to avoid the Chris Kreider-Artemi Panarin blockade he would confront on the left side.

Three disappointing seasons later, Lafreniere remains somewhat of a mystery. His rate production as a third-liner with negligible power play time is impressive, third on the Rangers over his tenure with 0.9 five-on-five goals per 60 minutes that ranks third behind only Pavel Buchnevich’s 1.08 and Kreider’s 1.04 among players with 700 minutes of ice time. But his impact has not been commensurate with that fancy stat.

There is shared blame for that. A lot of rationalizations, with some of those no more than excuses. If the Rangers have to assume responsibility for this, Lafreniere — who will turn 22 the day before the Oct. 12 opener in Buffalo — has to take ownership of his career.

That means whether he is on the right or left side. That means whether he starts the season as a top-six winger or begins again on the third unit. Me? I’m moving No. 13 to the right because, I’m sorry (no I’m not in the least), I am not demoting Kreider — the NHL’s seventh-leading goal-scorer over the last two years — to the third line.

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from Mollie Walker of the New York Post,

Alexis Lafreniere is set to continue his Rangers career after signing a two-year, $4.65 million deal on Wednesday, The Post has learned.

The Rangers’ 2020 first-overall pick is the last restricted free agent the club had to sign, officially bringing their in-house offseason business to a close with just under a month to go until training camp.

It became clear that no other team planned to present Lafreniere with an offer sheet, so there was no real sense of urgency to get a deal done.

As a result, negotiations came together a bit later in the offseason.

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from Mollie Walker of the New York Post,

The key signing was Wheeler for a multitude of reasons.

The former Jets captain agreed to a one-year deal with an average annual value of $1.1 million, which only crossed into seven figures because of a max $300,000 performance bonus incentive.

Otherwise, Wheeler will be making a base salary of $800,000 as he embarks on his 16th NHL season.

To put it in perspective, the 36-year-old was most recently carrying a cap hit of $8.25 million before Winnipeg bought out the final year of his five-year deal at the end of June.

That’s a potential pay cut of $7.15 million or more, depending on Wheeler’s play.

The price tag does not correlate with how much Wheeler will be expected to do for the Rangers.

“It’s exciting to see a player like Blake Wheeler pick our group,” Chris Kreider said last week in the locker room of the Terry Conners Ice Rink, where the Shoulder Check Showcase charity event was hosted to benefit the #HT40 Foundation. “A guy who’s in a position where he’s had a ton of success, he’s an incredible player, he’s had an outstanding career. And he looks at our group and says, ‘Yeah, they’re right there and I want to win a Cup.’ That’s quite the vote of confidence.

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from Larry Brooks of the New York Post,

Regarding the Rangers, in the dead calm of the summer:

1. It is no secret the Blueshirts are operating under a Win Now mandate, which is somewhat appropriate for a team loaded with veterans playing for a franchise that is going on 30 years since its one and only Cup since, Lord help me, 1940.

Perhaps paradoxically, though, the only way for the Rangers to accomplish their objective is for incoming head coach Peter Laviolette not to take the mission statement literally the way that Gerard Gallant, his predecessor, did.

This means that Laviolette must allow Filip Chytil, Kaapo Kakko and Alexis Lafreniere — the only three forwards younger than 30 projected to make the opening roster, if you can believe that five-plus years after The Letter — to breathe and make mistakes even if that approach could cost a point or three early.

Look, I get it. The pressure to make the playoffs is immense. Every game matters. But you have to be willing to risk taking a baby step back in order to be in position take two giant steps forward down the line. This is something Gallant would not do.

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from Larry Brooks of the New York Post,

There are two distinct counting categories that confront NHL general managers. One is the cap. The other is the calendar.

Chris Drury appears to have done a rather fine job at tackling the first element on the Rangers’ coupon-clipping foray into the opening of the free agent market. The second, well, that is an age-old question to which the answer won’t be known for months.

In a young man’s league that trends younger by the day, the Blueshirts have become an Outpost for Old Men — at least up front following Saturday’s activity that included signing five forwards. The commonality shared by Blake Wheeler, Nick Bonino, Tyler Pitlick, Riley Nash and Alex Belzile is they are 31 or older with all but Belzile at least age 33.

Adding these forwards to a roster featuring Mika Zibanejad (30), Chris Kreider (32), Artemi Panarin (32 at the end of October), Vincent Trocheck (30 on July 11), Barclay Goodrow (30) and Jimmy Vesey (30) indicates that the organization should probably adopt a grey jersey as an alternate sweater.

Chances are the Rangers will open in Buffalo on Oct. 12 with a roster including only three forwards younger than 30: Filip Chytil (24 on Sept. 5), Alexis Lafreniere (22 on Oct. 11), Kaapo Kakko (22). See why even if they have outgrown the “Kid” moniker, it applies here?

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added 12:36pm, Jonathan Quick signs with the Rangers too, press release in comment section.

NEW YORK, July 1, 2023 – New York Rangers President and General Manager Chris Drury announced today that the team has agreed to terms with forward Blake Wheeler on a one-year contract.

Wheeler, 36, skated in 72 games for the Winnipeg Jets in 2022-23, recording 16 goals and 39 assists for 55 points. Wheeler added seven power play goals, the second most of his career, and a career-high tying six game-winning goals. On the Jets, Wheeler ranked tied for fourth in goals, third in assists and fifth in points.

NEW YORK, June 23, 2023 – New York Rangers President and General Manager Chris Drury announced today that the team has named Phil Housley Associate Head Coach, and Dan Muse and Michael Peca Assistant Coaches with the Rangers.

The Rangers are going to experience culture shock with Laviolette, who was officially introduced Tuesday as the club’s head coach, replacing Gerard Gallant behind the bench. They are going to be challenged mentally and physically. That will start in training camp, maybe even in summer introductory phone calls. They are going to be in for some motivational talks and some that might tear the paint off the locker room wall. The Blueshirts are going to be coached up.

-Larry Brooks of the New York Post where you read more on Peter Laviolette.

from Larry Brooks of the New York Post,

It is important for an NHL head coach to have assistants in whom he has utmost trust, both personally and professionally. Peter Laviolette deserves to have a staff largely of his choosing when he steps behind the bench for the Rangers.

But I also believe the Blueshirts are in need of a young presence and voice on the staff even if not necessarily a member of the head coach’s retinue. This is a veteran team with a veteran head coach, but there is a critical youthful component to the mix, too. Staff diversity is required. There is no reason for same-old, same-old. This is not a time for cronyism.

In addition, the Rangers’ power play became stagnant last season, and no, that was not because of Patrick Kane. The unit underachieved all season. Pass, pass, pass, one-timer by Mika. Pass, pass, pass, one-timer by Mika. Pass, pass, pass, the first unit staying on for 1:25 regardless.

The OHL Windsor Spitfires have had a dynamic power play the last two seasons. They are coached by the dynamic offensive former player, Marc Savard, originally a Ranger before he was unfortunately sent away to Calgary at age 21 in the deal that yielded Jamie Lundmark and Jan Hlavac in June 1999.

Nearly a quarter of a century later, it is time to explore bringing Savard back to New York as an assistant coach to preside over the power play and work with the forwards. In two years a head coach in the OHL, in which he had Will Cuylle for a spell, Savard’s team won the West both seasons while finishing second overall in the league.

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Finally, I’d like to see Steve Larmer be elected to the HHOF, I’d like to see Butch Goring gain induction, I’d be happy if Claude Provost were recognized. And I wonder if Matthew Tkachuk’s dramatic rise to prominence will invite another look at the candidacy of his dad, Keith “Big Walt” Tkachuk.

from Larry Brooks of the New York Post,

The burden of proof rests on Peter Laviolette, the eighth-winningest coach in NHL history, who has been hired by the Rangers for the express purpose of leading the motorcade through the Canyon of Heroes 12 months from now.

But the burden of proof lies equally with the top-end playing personnel that has chewed through two coaches in the last three seasons while indicting — who used that word? — both David Quinn and Gerard Gallant for deficiencies behind the bench and in the room.

Gallant walked the plank despite having led the Blueshirts to the fifth-best record in the league his two years in New York, but the athletes who came up so small in the seven-game defeat to the Devils do not get off the hook here after curling up in the fetal position three of the final four games of the series.

These players have used up their allotment of gripes. They are not going to fire another good coach and another good man. And they are not going to be let off the hook by Laviolette, hired Tuesday after a five-week search throughout which the 58-year-old was the leader in the clubhouse from Day 1.

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NEW YORK, June 13, 2023 – New York Rangers President and General Manager Chris Drury announced today that the team has named Peter Laviolette the 37^th Head Coach in team history.

“We are thrilled that Peter will be the next Head Coach of the New York Rangers,” Drury said. “With Peter’s extensive experience as a Head Coach in the National Hockey League, as well as the success his teams have had at several levels throughout his career, we are excited about what the future holds with him leading our team.”

“I would like to welcome Peter to the New York Rangers,” said James Dolan, Executive Chairman, Madison Square Garden Sports Corp. “Peter’s impressive resumé, which includes winning a Stanley Cup and advancing to the Final with three different teams, has made him one of the most respected coaches in the league. As we move forward in our goal to consistently contend for the Stanley Cup, I am confident that Peter is the right head coach to lead our team.”