The New York Rangers still have to hire a coach, but the team’s top goal is to continue to improve its blueline this offseason. Just a year ago, the Rangers invested heavily into a veteran defense that was expected to be among the best in the league. The team went out and signed highly coveted free agent Kevin Shattenkirk and re-signed Brendan Smith to go with captain Ryan McDonagh and Marc Staal and a rising Brady Skjei.
Instead the defense struggled mightily as they were ranked fourth in goals against, allowing 3.21 goals per game during the 2017-18 season. Now with McDonagh gone and the team in a rebuild, the Rangers must make more changes to improve their struggling blueline.
The Athletic’s Shayna Goldman (subscription required) writes that a few pieces are certain. A healthy Shattenkirk should boost the team’s defense after the team shut him down in the middle of the year with a torn meniscus. Throw in a much improved year for Staal and the Rangers have a couple of solid pieces to aid them. The team still has high hopes for Skjei, despite his second-year struggles, but Smith is a complete unknown as it will be up to him to get into game shape and prove he was worth the four-year, $17.4MM deal he signed last offseason. The team did like the way rookie Neal Pionk played in his 28-game trial at the end of the year. Even defenseman Anthony DeAngelo showed improvement at the end of the year as well. The team also added a number of new young d-men at the trade deadline that aren’t too far off, including Ryan Lindgren, Libor Hajek and Yegor Rykov.
Regardless, the team could use a boost from an experienced young defenseman that can help stabilize last year’s crew or at the very least, more young talent that will be ready within a year. The New York Post’s Larry Brooks writes that the team should consider offering up either Kevin Hayes or Mike Zibanejad in exchange for defensive help, assuming the player they get back is a current or future top-four defenseman. While he believes that Dougie Hamilton would be the perfect trade target, he doubts the Calgary Flames would move him. However, Calgary is loaded with defensive prospects that are stuck behind their veteran defense, suggesting the Rangers go after prospect Adam Fox, who is a top defenseman at Harvard University, and who was the former partner of Lindgren. Trading one of those young veterans could work as centermen are in high demand right now with few available on the free agent market and with the Rangers putting much of their hopes on both of last year’s first-round picks in Lias Andersson and Filip Chytil at center next season.
No matter what, the team will have to make some changes if they hope to improve on their disappointing 2017-18 season.
First off, defense wasn’t the problem, it was offense. Signing Shats was to improve the offensive capability of the defense at the line and PP. Secondly, the defensive numbers suffered and ballooned when the selloff began. You’ll see the correlation with Lundqvist’s numbers.
The recommendations mentioned in which they trade offense for defense is ridiculous. At this point they need offensive prospects to complete this rebuild they began – preferably a franchise type player. They have enough defensive players and prospects for now. Perhaps moving some of the crazy contracts they have like Smith and Staal would help open things, though getting anyone to take those contracts on will be near impossible without attachments.
What comes out of the press vs what the Rangers are doing/saying (note to fans) makes me question if there is enough dedication to any one particular strategy to right the ship.
The Rangers defense will be much improved last year.
You have three players who will definitely be there opening night: Staal, Shattenkirk, and Skjei
Pionk is probably a lock as well.
Then you have Hajek, Deangelo, Rykov, and Lindgren to sort through.
Why do people continue to throw Dougie’s name out there? Stop it. Might as well start writing crap like “Connor McDavid would be a perfect addition for (insert team) at center, but he’s probably not available.” Stupid!
Shattenkirk has never been & never will be great defensively. It isn’t who he is. He is a risk taker. If the Rangers insist on playing him top pair minutes, they will not be in a good position. He isn’t a shut down d-man. The Rangers would be better served to find a shutdown pair & move Shattenkirk to the second pairing where he belongs. Shattenkirk played his best hockey in St. Louis when he was on the 2nd pair and was allowed to do his thing offensively. He wasn’t relied on to be the shut down guy & that allowed him to produce.