Been thinking a lot, not just since the season ended for the Rangers, but for quite a while before that, about the way they defend.
But first a couple of disclaimers. First, and foremost, I am not even going to pretend to understand the small details of the system employed by Alain Vigneault and his staff. I don’t. I mean, I watch it and recognize it, and I know what they’re trying to accomplish.
As AV said, and I paraphrase, the object is to have the puck and when you lose it, to get it back as quickly as possible, via pressure, constant pressure, on the puck. Once the Rangers do get it back, the immediate step is to move it quickly. That is how and why the Rangers succeeded so much in Vigneault’s first two seasons, how and why they appeared to be such a fast team.
The second disclaimer – and I have been as guilty as anybody in thinking this way – is that the Rangers didn’t defend at all. Of course they defended, as a team, pretty well for portions of the season.
In fact, the stretch that led through the game the night of the trade deadline – the stretch that, if there had been any doubts, convinced Vigneault and GM Jeff Gorton that the Rangers would be buyers, not sellers that day – featured probably their best hockey of the season.
At that point, on Feb. 29 they were 14-5-1 in 20 games, bouncing all the way back from that rock-bottom December free fall. They hadn’t lost two in a row, in any fashion, since Dec. 20. They had allowed two goals or fewer in 10 of 13. Henrik Lundqvist was on a 14-5-1 roll (1.93, .931, two shutouts). And at that point, the Rangers were second in the NHL at 5-on-5 goal differential.
Yeah, they had some hiccups even in their best stretch of the season – the no-show in Ottawa, a couple of unsightly losses to the Devils, blown-late-lead home losses to Washington just before the run, then Los Angeles and Chicago.
Mostly, though, they were defending at an above-average pace, unlike the ridiculous early-season 16-3-2 start in which Lundqvist hid their defensive deficiencies, and the fact that they were outplayed for so much of so many of those games.
Coming down the stretch, the Rangers’ team defense just fell apart, and it blew up in their faces in the five-game ejector-seat playoff against Pittsburgh.
How did this happen to a team whose bread-and-butter had been the way it defended in front of its goalie? The way it turned that defense into offense?
What happened to, as Ryan McDonagh often said, their “structure?”
The simple answer, of course, is this: McDonagh was inconsistent, Dan Girardi’s game deteriorated, Marc Staal’s was only somewhat better. Keith Yandle, one of their better players, is hardly a defensive-defenseman. Dan Boyle was just awful. Kevin Klein was their most consistent defenseman, but his game broke down as his minutes increased. And Dylan McIlrath couldn’t get into a game when the other six were healthy, as badly as Girardi and Boyle needed nights off.
That simple answer, though, doesn’t tell the whole story.
The Rangers under Vigneault, have played a man-to-man defense in their own end, and even if the six defensemen had better seasons individually, could they have been better at the man-to-man when four of their top four forwards – Derick Brassard, Mats Zuccarello, Chris Kreider and J.T. Miller – are, to put it kindly, hardly Selke Trophy candidates? In fact, those four were quite terrible, especially when Brassard and Zuccarello, two-thirds of the Rangers’ best line the two prior seasons, were together this season.
So here you have this man-to-man scheme, and often with two or three struggling defensive players on the ice. This is a scheme that relies on everybody doing his job, because it is built on the principle of pressuring the puck. In other words, chasing the puck. If one player isn’t doing his job, isn’t where he is supposed to be, or guarding the man he’s supposed to guard, you know what you get?
You get fire drills. You get opponents popping up wide open in dangerous places. You get passes through seams. You get uncontested chances. If more than one player is not taking his man, multiply the problem.
So if a puck goes to the point, and a Rangers defenseman chases it to the point, then a forward better be playing “defenseman” near the net.
In my opinion, the Rangers didn’t do themselves any favors, with their play around the net – the constant poke-checking, sliding to the ice or going to a knee, not putting a body on the man (Nicklas Backstrom with 5.7 seconds left, with McDonagh watching). They certainly didn’t help themselves with panicky handling of the puck, especially Girardi and Boyle (probably Larry Brooks’ fault) and even the high-risk-taking Yandle.
When the defensemen chase the puck to the corner or above the circle, or to the sidewall, or to the point, that creates another problem, even if the other four skaters are doing the right thing. Because they are now defensemen, or skating into a defensive posture (theoretically). So when the Rangers do come up with the puck, the outlet might not be there. If Zuccarello, for example, is doing his job and covering for Girardi at the left post, and McDonagh looks up, where is Zuccarello? Not in any position to take an outlet pass, that’s where.
I have seen other teams play a similar style in their own end. But I have noticed, at least I think, that other teams’ D-men stop chasing when the puck goes to a non-dangerous area. I noticed that other teams’ D-men won’t go to the half-wall or to the point in pursuit of the puck.
Vigneault said the inconsistency of his team defense, and the inability to make the good outlet pass, was the biggest problem he could define this season. It sure did make the Rangers appear slower.
It also more than trickled down to the woeful penalty kill, and to those situations where an opponent pulled its goalie to get an extra attacker. Because of you’re still chasing the puck the same way AND the opponent is skating 5-on-4 or 6-on-5 or even 6-on-4, there are going to be seams everywhere. Boy, were there.
The penalty kill rarely seemed to be in a box or a diamond because of its over-aggressive style, and it was exposed because of that.
These were enormous issues for the Rangers, issues for which I certainly don’t have answers, if AV and assistant coach Ulf Samuelsson don’t.
Again, I think this was a system that has worked and can be successful. But it cannot be when there often is one player playing to a different drummer, let alone two. Or three.
I only know the Rangers crumbled in so many games, and in their brief playoff appearance. I only know that this is Job 1 for next season, no matter how many of the current personnel return.
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