Regarding the Rangers, whose organizational mental health was preserved by a desperately played third period of a desperately needed victory at the Garden on Monday against St. Louis. Days grow shorter in December and so does time in the NHL.
1. Gerard Gallant trusted his instincts and was rewarded for it. Instead of benching Alexis Lafreniere after he had committed his third offensive-zone penalty within the last six games, the head coach instead elevated both No. 13 and his lottery-dust twin, Kaapo Kakko, to the top unit flanking Mika Zibanejad late in the second period.
The new line combination was on for two goals within the first 8:16 of the third, with a dramatically reinvigorated Lafreniere getting one off a deflection to twist a 4-3 deficit into a 5-4 lead the team would expand to a final of 6-4. A taste of honey proved the proper elixir for what had been ailing both the winger and the team.
Neither did it hurt Zibanejad, who hasn’t exactly been producing elite results at five-on-five this season, if anyone has noticed.
2. I’d found Gallant to be oddly passive while the team crashed against Ottawa and Chicago 24 hours apart at the Garden on Friday and Saturday. Same personnel on one miserably executed power play after another. No benchings. No emotion.
The coach, never passive on the ice as one of the NHL’s most accomplished power wingers of the late ’80s, seemed to be as defeated as many of his demoralized athletes. The team did not look like itself and neither did the glassy-eyed coach.
To say that the clock had started ticking on Gallant less than a half-season after taking the Blueshirts on an unexpected ride to the conference finals in his first year behind the bench would be an exaggeration, but probably not by a lot.
There is no taste for it, but there are also not many organizational alternatives regarding a midseason overhaul for a team with a roster clogged at the top with no-move contracts,
It is not just that the Rangers have won only 12 of 27 games (12-10-5). It is that the team almost never plays with authority. It is that the team has not established an identity. It is that nearly every young guy has regressed … and at the time the club needs them the most.
3. Let’s revisit the narratives entering the season: 1. The Rangers would need Igor Shesterkin to replicate his Vezina-winning performance of a year ago; 2. The Rangers would need the kids — specifically a permutation of Lafreniere, Kakko and Vitali Kravtsov — to ably fill top-six holes created by the free-agent departures of Andrew Copp and Frank Vatrano; 3. The Rangers would need Vincent Trocheck to mesh with Artemi Panarin the way that Ryan Strome had; 4. The power play would need to keep on humming.
Well, none out of four is not particularly good.
4. Heredity or environment? That is the essence of what we are all wondering about Lafreniere and Kakko, isn’t it? How much are the Rangers to blame for the excruciatingly slow progress shown by the 2020 first-overall and 2019 second-overall, respectively, and how much is attached to the players, themselves? What is this string of top-10s from Lias Andersson to Kravtsov to Kakko to Lafreniere all about? What are the Rangers — from one administration to the next — doing wrong?
It’s about opportunity, isn’t it, at least as applies to Lafreniere and Kakko? Or that’s the hope, because if it is not, then there’s an even more serious issue. The wingers each received reasonable top-six time last year and earlier this season, but they hadn’t before had the opportunity to twin with Zibanejad, Indeed, the trio has been together for a grand total of 14:52 that includes Monday’s 4:40.
5. So they get their shot now as the Rangers enter a particularly challenging stretch in which they’re at Vegas on Wednesday and Colorado on Friday before coming home to meet the Devils on Dec. 12 and the Maple Leafs on Dec. 15.
But the overall time distribution that is so lopsided toward PP1 forwards Zibanejad, Chris Kreider, Panarin and Trocheck will not change unless Gallant switches up either his personnel on his special teams or the approach that allows the first power-play unit to stay on ad infinitum.
The fact is that Lafreniere and Kakko are third and fourth, respectively, in five-on-five ice time among forwards, trailing only Panarin and Trocheck. But that doesn’t mean a whole lot when they are nailed to the bench once the game turns into a special teams fiesta.
If the Rangers are truly ready to showcase Lafreniere and Kakko, that will have to change. Yes, the team has scored on two of its last three power-play opportunities, on Monday 1-for-1 in only 0:06, but the genuflection toward PP1 that has started every single man-advantage the last nine games must come to an end.
Otherwise, the thrill and benefit of playing with Zibanejad — who also piles up minutes on the primary penalty-kill unit with Kreider — will fade pretty quickly.