Rangers new-look lines spark win over Canadiens, but jury’s still out after closer evaluation
Mired in a five-game losing streak, but getting Chris Kreider and Filip Chytil back from injury, coach Peter Laviolette shook up his forward line combinations on Saturday. And the immediate result was positive, the Rangers defeated the Montreal Canadiens 4-3.
With Kreider and Chytil in the lineup, Laviolette decided to scratch Reilly Smith and Jonny Brodzinski. The latter was pretty much a no-brainer. The former was a tougher decision. Smith had played all 22 previous games, mostly on the top line.
Likely that final decision came down to keeping rookie Brett Berard in the lineup a fourth straight game ahead of Smith, who’s gone nine games without a goal.
All of this prompted a shake up to the forward lines. Kreider slid back into his normal spot next to Mika Zibanejad, but the right wing was now Kaapo Kakko. Meanwhile, Chytil centered a line with Artemi Panarin and Will Cuylle for the first time this season.
Last season, the lines did not see this much movement — especially among the top six forwards. Once Chytil was injured last November, the line of Panarin, Vincent Trocheck and Alexis Lafrenière stuck together for the rest of the season. Kreider and Zibanejad played with a revolving cast of right wingers, but the two close friends stayed on the same line. On Saturday, the Zibanejad line was listed as the third line based on how the team skated in warmups.
The new-look second line was Trocheck and Lafrenière, with Berard playing on the left. The fourth line of Jimmy Vesey, Sam Carrick and Adam Edstrom remained intact, though Edstrom had seen some third-line duty recently.
The Rangers got the desired result with a win, but let’s take a look at how each line played.
Related: Filip Chytil’s cryptic comments overshadow return from injury
Rangers’ new second line plays the best at even strength
First, we should establish that this was a lackluster performance from the Rangers at five-on-five. They lost the expected goals (xG) battle pretty handily, 2.86 to 1.54 according to Natural Stat Trick. Most of their damage came on the power play, with three of their four goals on the man advantage, including Kakko’s game winner with 24 seconds remaining in regulation.
The line that scored the one even strength goal was the line centered by Trocheck. He and Lafrenière controlled play at by far the best rate on the team, with each of the forwards producing above 64 percent of the xG. Berard wasn’t as trusted by the coaches — he only saw 10:19 of total ice time.
Lafreniere and Trocheck have generally been good together since the start of last season. They have at 52.89 xG rate skating together at full strength. Of course, that’s been with Panarin as their running mate. It will be interesting to see if this new line sticks together.
Chytil returned to the lineup after a seven-game absence, and played with arguably the Rangers two best wingers this season, Panarin and Cuylle. This line didn’t have success by the numbers, as the Breadman led the line with just a 38.45 percent xG rate. He was the only one who was a positive relatively in this metric, Chytil and Cuylle were both below water.
There were some positive aspects to this play. Chytil injected much-needed pace into the lineup that helped the Rangers transition game.
“He’s one of the guys that can attack the game with the pace through the neutral zone.” Laviolette said after the game. “He’s got a ton of speed behind him and that pushes us north as well”.
It wasn’t a vintage five-on-five performance for the Zibanejad line. He, Kreider and Kakko were the worst forwards in terms of xG share. They definitely won’t be feeling down however, since both Zibanejad and Kakko scored power-play goals, Kakko’s. Kreider didn’t find the net, but he played a key role in screening the opposing goalie on two of the PP goals.
“Chris Kreider did an unbelievable job to take away the goalie’s eyes on both goals.” Laviolette noted.
The fourth line saw by far the fewest minutes of any of the lines, but they didn’t hurt the Rangers when on the ice. They were the only line that wasn’t on the ice for a goal against.
“The fourth line has been pretty responsible in the way they play the game.” Laviolette added in his postgame press conference.
Related: 3 Rangers takeaways from 4-3 win against Canadiens
The Verdict
The one-game sample isn’t big enough to draw many big conclusions about the Rangers line changes. The five-on-five play did not improve enough to say they definitely should stick with it. At the same time, it may take a few games for each line to gel. These lines were thrown together after a back-to-back, and had no chance to practice.
In this results-driven business, coaches don’t tend to change the lines after a win. So, it seems likely that we will see these lines again on Monday against the New Jersey Devils.
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