A couple of teams without many positive aspects of their present situations meet on Monday night at Madison Square Garden when the Blackhawks visit the New York Rangers.
The Rangers are in a bit of a spiral: despite sitting in a wild card spot for the playoffs, they’ve won just three out of their last 10 games and lost seven of the last nine. Their latest loss is fresh: a 7-5 defeat at the hands of the Seattle Kraken. It was a back-and-forth tilt until the halfway mark, when the Kraken scored five goals in a row between the second and third periods to go ahead 6-3. The Rangers pulled within one late but the Kraken held on and added an empty-netter for insurance. Vincent Trocheck and K’Andre Miller each had a goal and an assist while Reilly Smith, Filip Chytil, and Alexis Lefreniere added the other goals. Jonathan Quick had a surprisingly poor game from him this season, allowing six goals on 21 shots. Yikes.
That type of game isn’t new to the Rangers this season as they’re pretty weak defensively, putting them in the bottom half of the league in several categories such as, like shot attempt share (48.72 percent, 22nd) and expected goal share (49.55 percent, 20th). The latter is high because the Rangers are great at generating quality (2.79 expected goals per 60, 4th), but terrible at suppressing it (2.84 per 60, 28th).
The on-ice struggles for the Rangers are part of why they recently off-loaded their previous captain, Jacob Trouba, on Friday. New York had been trying to move Trouba since last offseason for salary cap reasons and create an opening for their younger defensemen, but he had a no-movement clause in his contract until July that he exercised to prevent the trade. Well, the NMC turned into a 15-team no-trade clause, and a deal was finally struck with Anaheim — even if it continued to be a mess, with threats of being sent to waivers being held over the former captain’s head.
As for the Ranger players still with the team, the roster is not without talent — at least offensively. Our old friend Artemi Panarin is still a stud, racking up 15 goals and 19 assists in 26 games already this season. There is a foursome of 25-and-younger players doing well this season too, at least offensively: Will Cuylle with 21 points (9 G, 12 A), Lafrenière with 20 points (9 G, 11 A), and Kaapo Kakko with 14 points (4 G, 10 A), all in 26 games, while Chytil has 10 (5 G, 5 A) in 19 games. Veterans Mika Zibanejad, Trocheck, Smith, and Krieder round out the top-nine with at or better than a 0.5 point-per-game.
On the back end, Adam Fox is also contributing at a torrid pace with 22 assists in 26 games, but he’s the only defenseman doing so. Fox along with Miller, Ryan Lindgren, and Braden Schneider do still make an impressive top-four, but the other three aren’t as points-inclined as the No. 1.
Since the Rangers played Sunday night, they did not have a morning skate on Monday. Their lines from the Kraken game were the following:
The only known change is that new dad Igor Shesterkin will be in net against Chicago. He has only a .908 save-percentage this season in 19 starts, but recently signed a contract that will make him the highest paid goalie in the NHL next season.
As for the Blackhawks, the team’s first game under interim head coach Anders Sorensen on Saturday was unfortunately a 4-2 loss to the Winnipeg Jets, extending their losing streak to five games. It was a pretty close contest until the Jets scored the tiebreaking goal halfway through the third period. Alex Vlasic and Alec Martinez scored Chicago’s goals while Connor Bedard picked up a point, bringing his total to four points (1 G, 3 A) in his last five games. Still, that latest point was a secondary assist on the power play, so 5-on-5 production still alludes him.
Petr Mrazek made four saves before leaving the game with a groin injury midway through the first period, and Arvid Soderblom made 21 saves on 24 shots in replacement. It’s not surprising the Blackhawks lost considering the team had only a single practice under the new coach and the Jets are a top team in the league, but there is hope that something positive can grow — even if it’s just at the individual player level — with a different voice in the room.
Mrazek wasn’t the only player injured in the Jets game as Alec Martinez tweaked something in his neck. Sorsensen gave the following timelines on both players:
With those injuries, the Blackhawks made recalled Drew Commesso and Kevin Korchinski from the Rockford IceHogs on Sunday and they are meeting the team in New York:
This comes at a good time for Korchinski who started the AHL season a little slow but has recently been playing pretty excellent hockey for the IceHogs. The Blackhawks probably would have liked to see a more prolonged period of that improved play before the call-up, but it’s a good reward and will allow them to gauge his true progress. It’s unknown if he’ll play against the Rangers, though.
[UPDATED]: Korchinski is expected to play tonight in New York:
The other player transaction on Sunday was the Blackhawks placing Joey Anderson on waivers:
Anderson cleared waivers on Monday afternoon, which gives the Blackhawks a 30-day window to send him down to the AHL without having to go through the waiver process again. That news corresponds with buzz building that a Frank Nazar sighting with Chicago is imminent. As of the writing of this preview, there has been no move to bring Nazar up ahead of the Rangers game, but that could still change.
Ignoring the Nazar-shaped elephant in the room, the lines the Blackhawks will likely roll out are the same as they did at Sunday’s practice. Bedard’s linemates have been shuffled slightly again, swapping out Teuvo Teravainen with Ilya Mikheyev.
Personally, I’m not a big fan of the carousel to continue for Bedard’s wingers, and while Mikheyev has been much better offensively in games as of late in terms of underlying metrics, he’s not been getting results consistently. Sorensen seems to believe that Mikheyev’s skating in transition and that improved offensive play can help Bedard, so we’ll have to see if he’s correct or not.
Tale of the Tape
Blackhawks — Statistic — Rangers
44.40% (32nd) — 5-on-5 Corsi For — 48.72% (22nd)
44.08% (30th) — 5-on-5 Expected goals for — 49.55% (20th)
2.41 (31st) — Goals per game — 3.27 (t-9th)
3.19 (t-24th) — Goals against per game — 3.04 (t-17th)
44.2% (30th) — Faceoffs — 54.1% (3rd)
23.9% (10th) — Power play — 23.2% (11th)
82.1% (8th) — Penalty kill — 85.5% (2nd)
How to Watch
When: 6 p.m. CT
Where: Madison Square Garden, New York
TV: NHLN, CHSN (How to Watch)
Webstream: N/A
Radio: WGN 720