Rangers Leaking Oil, Missing Adam Fox, and Running Out of Chances

With the pressure at a season high and their playoff lives at stake, the New York Rangers came up with one of four possible points in the two back to back games following the trade deadline, that just so happened to be against two teams that are also in the thick of the East wild card race. This comes after a three game stretch leading up to the deadline that saw the Rangers post back to back shutouts by scores of 4-0, and then take the Eastern Conference leading Washington Capitals to their limit but fail to secure the second point in overtime.

Becoming overwhelmingly apparent over the last three games is just how much the Rangers are missing star defenseman Adam Fox, who sits third on the team in scoring with 48 points, 16 of which came on the power play, which has essentially failed to generate anything at all in Fox’s absence.

What’s frustrating and confusing about the season the Rangers have had in regard to offensive production and special teams is that their penalty kill has been effective all season long, not only at killing penalties, but also at generating short handed scoring chances, yet at even strength, the Rangers generate scoring chances at or below a league average rate, and continue to bleed high danger scoring chances at a near league high rate.

This was epitomized in Sunday night’s game against the Jackets, which saw the Rangers score two short handed goals on the same penalty kill to tie the game at three goals a piece, but converted on exactly zero out of four power play opportunities in a game that ultimately saw them lose by a four goal deficit, a final score of 7–3 following a total meltdown in the late second period. It didn’t help at all that Jonathan Quick played his worst game as a Ranger, but he’s far from harboring all of the blame for the result. The contrast between the penalty kill and the power play is simply astounding. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the Rangers score twice on the same penalty kill, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Rangers power play be so snake bitten.

The power play is just one for twenty on opportunities since Fox went down with an upper body injury. It’s painfully apparent that the Rangers struggle to sustain pressure without Fox keeping the puck in at the blue line when the killers try to clear the zone after the Rangers shoot. They’re still moving the puck well, generating a good first chance, and struggling to finish on the initial chance they get. If the killers recover the puck following the initial shot, no one has been able to position themselves at the blue line to keep the puck in the zone, it gets cleared 200 feet, and the Rangers have to start all over. They’re still entering the zone well, they’re setting up well, passing the puck well, but the right shots aren’t being taken, and when the shot is taken, nine out of ten times it ends up getting swallowed up by the goalie or cleared by the killing team immediately.

It was not clarified whether or not Fox would be joining the Rangers on their upcoming road trip, which will take them through Winnipeg, Minnesota, and then wrap up in Columbus for yet another must win game against the Blue Jackets. Winnipeg is first in the West and Minnesota has cooled off since starting the season red hot, but they have never been an easy two points for the Rangers in recent years. The Rangers schedule is among the hardest in the league down the stretch with less than twenty games to go now, so they have to look deep inside themselves and find a way to extract something beyond what they’ve shown since the trade deadline.

The Rangers sit directly below the cut line for the wild card spots, and are two points behind Columbus for the final playoff spot with one more game played than them. They have just 18 games left to play, and only 5 of those games are against teams that currently sit outside of the playoffs. The Red Wings and Senators play an extremely important game tonight, and if it goes to overtime and they both get points, the path to the playoffs will continue to get narrower for the Rangers. If they can’t break this 3 game losing streak, the path could vanish altogether before the calendar turns to April. It’s time to wake up.