The Rangers’ best team has Barclay Goodrow playing fourth-line center. But due to injuries and training decisions, Goodrow has filled that role just once through the season’s first six games. That was for the 6-4 victory against the Geese on Oct. 17 during which he skated between Dryden Hunt and Ryan Reaves.
And No. 21 won’t be playing there for the foreseeable future within the wake of Sunday’s suspected concussion sustained by Filip Chytil in that early first-period collision with Columbus’ Cole Sillinger. The foreseeable future encompasses at the very least every week and the following 4 games, per a club advisory.
So Goodrow, who had played five games on Chytil’s wing with 4 different third parties, will slide into the center of the third line in No. 72’s absence as he did for the ultimate 58 minutes on Sunday. Ryan Carpenter, meanwhile, will remain because the club’s fourth-line center.
Problems with depth in Recent York that may manifest even in the most effective of times will grow to be more apparent without Chytil, who had been playing assertive, self-confident hockey. So will the shortage of definition of each the Blueshirts’ third and fourth lines. So will the absence of depth down the center throughout the organization.
Nobody is suggesting the Rangers have lost two straight while playing down against the Sharks and Blue Jackets due to the bottom six. When a team is as top-heavy because the Recent York Six, the burden is on the premium players to supply and generate momentum. That didn’t occur in either the OT loss to San Jose or the defeat to Columbus during which the team was outscored 5-0 at five-on-five. Paging Chris Kreider.
Third amendments
Head coach Gerard Gallant prefers the third line to be a 3rd scoring unit slightly than a checking ensemble. That’s why The Kid Line matches into Gallant’s vision so well. However the coach broke up The Kids entering the season by moving Kaapo Kakko onto the primary line with Kreider and Mika Zibanejad.
The essence of that unit was further diluted one period into the season, when Alexis Lafreniere was needed to maneuver to right wing on the Artemi Panarin-Vincent Trocheck second line when Vitali Kravtsov went down with an upper-body injury.
The third line became Chytil centering Goodrow and a winger to be named later. Jimmy Vesey, Sammy Blais and Kravtsov each have filled that role. Off of the best way the Blueshirts practiced Monday, it appears as if Goodrow will center Vesey and Kravtsov for Tuesday’s Garden showdown against defending Cup champion Colorado as a type of a cut-and-paste third unit while Carpenter skates on the fourth line between Blais and Reaves.
Blais is feeling his way back after missing the ultimate five-and-a-half months of last season. He hasn’t yet found his speed or forecheck game. Neither Carpenter nor Reaves plays with great pace. The fourth line is searching for an identity. So is the third. It’s fair to say that so are the Rangers. If the expiration date on being often called “last yr’s conference finalists” has not passed, it is going to soon. This team needs to assert its own identity.
Center of (no) attention
It is just not as if the Rangers have an apparent plug-in facsimile for Chytil throughout the system. The organization has not made it a priority to zone in on drafting centers since Chytil (at No. 21 overall) and Lias Andersson (at No. 7) were chosen in 2017.
Neither current GM Chris Drury nor his predecessor Jeff Gorton has been capable of turn at the very least a perceived overabundance of prospects on defense right into a prospect down the center. That prospect-for-prospect take care of the center-heavy Kings that has been made hundreds of times on web message boards never has materialized.
So it is that this. Goodrow takes that spot. It’s hardly calamitous, but with Goodrow in the center and Vesey on the left, Kravtsov looks as if a chunk of the jigsaw puzzle that has smooth edges when one with jagged edges matches. Cut and paste. Mix and match. A pair from Column A and one from Column X.
Wolf eyes
The Blueshirts will go into Tuesday’s match with out a spare healthy forward before reviewing the situation ahead of Wednesday’s match against the Islanders at Belmont. They’re more likely to promote a forward for the two-game trip to Dallas on Saturday and Arizona on Sunday.
We’re told Will Cuylle has been the AHL Wolf Pack’s best forward through their 0-2-1-1 getaway (two regulation defeats and one apiece in additional time and within the shootout). The 2020 second-rounder has scored two goals. However the hierarchy should want to exercise prudence with the 20-year-old winger and permit him to gestate and construct a season in Hartford before bringing him to the NHL.
Center Gustav Rydahl, a healthy scratch for the AHL season’s second game, played well in two defeats this past weekend and could possibly be a plug-in. Usual suspect Jonny Brodzinski is all the time an excellent bet for this kind of emergency recall. Julien Gauthier, who has scored twice and is playing in all roles, also may be a candidate.
Reports are very encouraging on defenseman Matt Robertson, who’s off to a robust start with the Wolf Pack following a slightly disappointing showing during camp. Bobby Trivigno, though, could soon find himself assigned to Jacksonville of the ECHL after having been scratched in three of the primary 4 contests.