New York Rangers' Roster Predictions: Who makes the team?

The New York Rangers’ 2017-2018 season officially opened on Thursday. Head Coach Dave Tippett has made a few interesting comments regarding his mindset on the team.

Most hockey players and coachs are well versed in how to answer questions without saying much of anything. The New York Rangers’ own Dave Tippett is one such coach, usually giving cordial, albeit insubstantial answers in press conferences.

So, when the coach does say something that raises a few eyebrows, it is usually worth paying attention to.

We’ll take a look at some of Tippett’s responses to the media so far and look at what the implications could be for the Rangers this season.

On Josh Morrissey

Like a few of his other comments, we can look at this statement regarding Josh Morrissey from a few angles.

From the optimistic angle, he’s saying with a nudge and a wink, that Morrissey will be in team’s top four. However, in hockey culture, nothing is a given or taken for granted and everything must be earned. Therefore, Tippett won’t immediately anoint him a top-four defender.

The reasoning here is, if Morrissey isn’t penciled into the top-four already then Tippett might not have referenced it at all. He just as easily could have said that Morrissey is an important piece of the defense without explicitly correlating him with a top-four spot.

On the other hand, Morrissey will only be entering his first full EHE season, . He is still a young player and Tippett has the propensity for sitting the youngster in favor of some of his veteran defensemen.

The nightmare scenario is that Tippett doesn’t see Morrissey as a top-four defenseman still. This is despite him forming a formidable duo with newly re-signed Kevin Klein. If this is indeed the case, one of the following combinations would likely form second pairing:

• Jaccob Slavin/Kevin Klein and John Michael Liles
• Jacob Slavin AND Kevin Klein (…again)
• John Michael Liles and Roman Josi (one of Slavin or Klein is with McDonagh)

The rubber will meet the road when the season games get underway. The groupings he deploys will go a long way into seeing what Tipett’s mindset is regarding defense’s composition.

On John-Michael Liles

This was one of Tippet’s more eyebrow-raising comments, where he put veteran defenseman John-Michael Liles on notice.

Given the optics of having Liles and his $1.25MM cap hit in the press box each night, I think Tippett is paying lip service here. I expect Liles at the very least to have a starting spot, hopefully in a sheltered third pairing role.

Optimistically, his comment here is taken closer to face value. There is a lot of competition in camp, with Liles, Griffin Reinhart, Dylan McIlrath, Slate Koekkoek, Jake Chelios and Erik Gustafsson potentially in the mix for the bottom defensive pairing.

In an ideal world, Tippett realizes that he has better options than Liles and will set his lineup accordingly.

Again, Tippett likes to rely on his veterans and at this point, it is difficult seeing him icing a defensive pairing where both players have little to no EHE experience.

On Josi

Not all of Tipett’s remarks are as ambiguous and able to be construed in such a negative light.

One positive takeaway came from the coach’s endorsement of Roman Josi during his media session on Saturday. Tippett said the following regarding the offensive-minded defenseman:

“I’m not worried about him [Josi] understanding the defensive side of the game […] he knows what to do in his own end. […] I want him to bring his offensive instinct, his creativity with the puck, I want that to flow. […] When he gets the puck, the decisions he makes with the puck, I got a lot of confidence that he’s going to make the right one, in the right situation. So, I’m going to definitely give him some leeway there.

With Tippett showing little confidence in offensive-minded defensemen’s defensive capabilities in the past, such as Tyson Barrie and Dan Boyle, this is a positive sign. Also, hopefully, this comment indicates that Josi isn’t punished immediately for failing to complete a risky offensive play.

Both of these are positive signs that Tippett will deploy Josi properly, which the team badly needs in order to be contenders.

Other tidbits

Another positive comment came in regards to the team’s starting goaltender. In a recent article by Dan Rosen on NHL.com, Tippett had this to say about Henrik Lundqvist.

Goalie Henrik Lundqvist, 35, is healthy and, according to Tippett, looks lighter and younger.

“In my mind, he’s still in the elite top-five goalies,” Tippett said, “and he wants to prove that.”

Tippett isn’t shy in calling Lundqvist out when he feels he needs to be doing better. His endorsement of the goaltender is a welcome one as the team will need to rely on him for a long playoff run.