Development of top prospects remains Rangers' primary objective
The Bruins' Jeremy Lauzon and the Rangers' Pavel Buchnevich fight in the second period of an NHL game on Friday at Madison Square Garden. Credit: AP/Elsa
After his Rangers lost to the Boston Bruins, 1-0, on Friday night, David Quinn said, "The game started becoming a man’s game, and [the Bruins have] got more men than we do.’’
What, exactly, was the point he was trying to make? Was he raising the white flag and telling the fans to wait until next year?
No, certainly not. Quinn was trying to compliment the Bruins and at the same time say how proud he was that his young team stood toe-to-toe with Boston and didn’t back down when the going got tough. Brendan Lemieux, Pavel Buchnevich and Jacob Trouba dropped the gloves in the nasty second period Friday.
Quinn talked about how playing tough games against teams like the Bruins is "going to be so valuable for young players moving forward’’ and said the Rangers’ youngsters "can learn an awful lot from a team like that.’’
All of which sounds as if he is laying the groundwork to make an argument that the Rangers don’t have to make the playoffs for this season to be considered successful. What he seems to be saying is that development of the top prospects remains the primary objective.
But if making the playoffs is a goal, as everyone said it was last month when training camp began, then it might be a good time to point out that it is starting to get late early in this 56-game season. The Rangers are 4-6-3 and in sixth place in the eight-team East Division, ahead of only the Devils and Buffalo Sabres, neither of whom has played this month because of COVID-19 protocols.
On Friday night, the Rangers’ best players were their young guys. Kaapo Kakko, who turned 20 on Saturday, Alexis Lafreniere, who is 19, and Julien Gauthier, who is 23 but has only 25 NHL games under his belt, stood out for their efforts.
If the Rangers are to make the playoffs, though, the older guys — Mika Zibanejad chief among them — are going to need to score some goals. And soon.
Zibanejad, who had 41 goals in 57 games last season, has one goal through the first 13 games this season. That isn’t going to cut it.
For now, there isn’t much Quinn can do but wait for Zibanejad, Chris Kreider and Buchnevich to break out and hope that the lower-body injury that shelved Artemi Panarin for Friday’s game clears itself up soon.
Panarin did not skate at practice Saturday and Quinn broke up the first line of Kreider, Zibanejad and Buchnevich, moving Buchnevich to the third line with Brett Howden and Phillip DiGiuseppe. Grinding forward Colin Blackwell slotted into Buchnevich’s spot on the top line.
"I think [Buchnevich’s] been struggling lately, and we’ve had conversations about it,’’ Quinn said in explaining the change. "It was time to make that move.’’
Hartford off to fast start
The AHL season started a week ago and the Rangers’ farm club, the Hartford Wolf Pack, got off to a fast start, beating the Islanders’ Bridgeport Sound Tigers affiliate and Boston’s Providence Bruins affiliate.
Goaltender Keith Kinkaid, the Farmingville native who signed with the Rangers as a free agent in October, played both games for the Wolf Pack. He allowed two goals against Bridgeport in a 5-2 win and earned a shutout in a 4-0 win over Providence. In two games, he’s stopped 50 of 52 shots.
Kinkaid, 31, isn’t exactly a prospect for the Rangers; he’s more of an emergency third goaltender. But he needs to play once in a while to stay sharp. And so, while there are three young goaltenders currently with Hartford — second-year pro Adam Huska, rookie Tyler Wall and 2020 draft pick Dylan Garland — the Rangers chose to move Kinkaid from their taxi squad to Hartford so he could play and get some much-needed work.
"Certainly we want to keep Keith as sharp as we can in case we need him, while also balancing the development of Wall and Huska and Garland there,’’ Rangers associate general manager Chris Drury said. "This was a good opportunity to get Keith in two games . . . He’s been working extremely hard in Ranger taxi [squad] and in Ranger practices, so it’s up to us to keep him sharp in case we need him.’’
Drury had a good last few weeks himself. He was favored to get the Penguins’ general manager job two weeks ago before he took himself out of consideration. The Rangers then promoted him from assistant GM to associate GM. On Friday, USA Hockey named Drury as the GM for the World Championships in Latvia this spring. He also was GM of the 2019 team and would have been GM for 2020 had the tournament not been canceled because of the coronavirus.
Colin Stephenson covers the Rangers for Newsday. He has spent more than two decades covering the NHL and just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.
