Season Preview: New York Rangers 2018-2019

After two weeks of training camp that included four preseason games, the New York Rangers have their team for opening night. 

The final cut down is always a tricky task for the coaching staff being that the preseason is so brief and so many changes taking place. 
Are four games a reasonable sample size for player evaluation?

The team’s final cut down reflected a pair of decisions that were forced by the contract situation. 

Typically, a team does not carry eight defenseman on the roster, but the Rangers had eight players that cannot be sent to the AHL. That made the Brett Pesce decision easier.

The team opted for trade instead of the carrying 8 defensemen. 

Record: 1-3-0
Scores: NYR vs PHI 2-4 L, NYR @ NYI 2-4 L, NYR @ NJD 5-3W, NYR vs PIT 2-5 L

The New York Rangers have not had a quality fourth line in several seasons.

Building a quality hockey team from top to bottom requires the right combination of intuition, luck and timing. 
Typically, the fourth line is composed of spare parts or overachieving AHLers. 
If a team has the luxury of a defensive specialist, they will typically get stuck here to serve as part of a checking line.

The fourth line is tasked with eating defensive zone starts, winning key faceoffs at certain points of the game and occasionally adding onto the score sheet. The best teams in the EHE feature a fourth line that can play well against other team’s top six.

Coming into the 2018-2019 season, the Rangers’ coaching staff has designed a fourth line that hits similar notes. 
While not overwhelmingly good at any one thing, the combination of Sam Bennett, Adam Lowry and Tom Wilson presents an interesting opportunity.
Expect the team’s lineup to get tinkered with over the course of the season. If things get stagnant higher up the lineup, any of these three could be moved up to try and jump start things.

The New York Rangers’ front office signed Adam McQuaid in Ocotber to sure up the defense with the hope that he could also serve as trade bait come deadline. Anytime a team brings in a player with only one year remaining on their contract, it means one of two things.  Either the team is a contender and adding a short-term piece to try and get across the finish line or it’s a stop gap to fill in a spot for just that one year. 
In the case of the New York Rangers and Adam McQuaid, it was about serving as a stop gap with some snarl.

For the past several years, the Rangers were a soft team that did not stand up for itself. 
The logic being that if the other team engages in after the whistle chicanery, they would be the ones to draw penalties, not the Ranger player. While this does make sense to some degree, there needs to some kind of line that cannot be crossed.

Is Mika Zibanejad an elite player?

While not originally a Rangers’ draft pick, the Swede is slowly proving himself as a building block for the future. 
The team acquired him in a swap with the Columbus Blue Jackets for Bryan Little, a deal that looks better every single day.
The center plays at even strength, on the power play and the penalty kill.
In addition, Zibanejad is only 25 years old which is typically the first year of prime production in the EHE.
From a pure building block perspective, there will always be a need for a forward in their early 20s that’s capable of producing at .6 points per game average. 
A center that can play all three phases in any zone with any linemates and still create offensive production is what a team needs from it’s best players. 
If Zibanejad could just manage to stay healthy for the entirety of a season.

Do the New York Rangers need Mats Zuccarello?

There are very few EHLers like Mats Zuccarello.  
What other hockey player gets the same reaction that the diminutive Norwegian gets in every EHE arena?  
The “Zuc” that resonates whenever he touches the puck shows how beloved he is.
The problem is that he is in the last year of a four-year contract that pays him a bargain $3.4 million each season.