Rangers in good shape, but COVID-19 makes things uncertain for everyone
Dylan Coghlan #52 of the Vegas Golden Knights blocks a shot attempts during the second period against Alexis Lafreniere #13 of the New York Rangers at Madison Square Garden on Friday, Dec. 17, 2021 in New York City. Credit: Jim McIsaac
Back when NHL fans could focus on hockey and not COVID-19, the Rangers were putting together a nice season for themselves.
They are 19-7-4, good enough for third place in the Metropolitan Division and a playoff position. For a team whose goal is to make the playoffs for the first time since 2017, that has them feeling pretty good about themselves.
"If you look at the standings, we’ve been doing pretty well,’’ center Mika Zibanejad said. "We go back and forth about, ‘Do we play the full 60 minutes or not?’ Or did we start slow or didn’t have a good second [period] or whatever. But we’ve been finding ways to win.
"We’ve still got another 52 games to go. Obviously, the first goal is to make the playoffs. I think we’re doing a good job of going towards that. There’s things that we can do better and improve, but overall, I’m happy this far.’’
COVID-19, though, will throw a monkey wrench into things.
The surge in positive test results around the league, fueled by the new Omicron variant, prompted the NHL to start the Christmas break a couple of days early and reverse its decision to allow its players to play in the Olympics in China in February.
Then, on Friday evening, the league announced it was pushing back the restart of the schedule at least one day, meaning the games scheduled for Monday — including the Rangers against the Detroit Red Wings at Madison Square Garden — have been postponed.
Teams are still going to report to practice Sunday, but the league said it wants additional time to assess each team’s readiness to play. With 11 players in the COVID protocol, the Red Wings had been shut down before the Christmas break. And, of course, the league needs to see if any additional players test positive when teams return to practice.
With the league no longer shutting down for a three-week Olympic break in February, that time will be used to reschedule games that have been postponed or will be postponed in the coming weeks. But the way these things work, whatever schedule modifications the league makes will surely create inequities for teams.
Some will have more games needing to be rescheduled than others, which will create a heavier concentration of games in the second half of the season for some teams. And while the league will want to ensure that each team plays a full 82-game schedule, at this point, there can be no assurances that that will happen.
There’s also no telling what effect the virus will have on the performance of teams that had major outbreaks.
The game against the Red Wings is the fourth the Rangers have had postponed because of COVID-19 this season. They also have had home games against the Islanders (Nov. 28) and Montreal (Dec. 22) and a road game Nov. 20 in Ottawa against the Senators postponed. The game against the Islanders has been rescheduled for St. Patrick’s Day, March 17.
The Rangers last played Dec. 17, when they lost to the Vegas Golden Knights at the Garden, 3-2, in a shootout. Their next scheduled game is Wednesday, when they are supposed to take on the Panthers in Sunrise, Florida. Assuming that game is played as scheduled, it would mean 12 days between games for the Rangers.
Then again, there’s no assurance that the game will be played Wednesday. Florida had seven players in COVID-19 protocol last week.
The Rangers haven’t been hit as hard by COVID-19 as other teams have. Ryan Strome and Greg McKegg are the only players who have missed time because they had the virus. (When goaltender Igor Shesterkin went on injured reserve earlier this month, the team was unable to immediately recall goalie Keith Kinkaid from the minor leagues because he was in COVID protocol at the time.)
Defenseman Patrik Nemeth is the only player on the roster who currently is in the league’s COVID protocol, and he went into it on Dec. 18. With the postponement of the Montreal and Detroit games, that means if Nemeth exits protocol after the standard 10 days, he might not even miss any games.
The Rangers also benefit by getting extra time for Shesterkin and leading scorer Artemi Panarin to fully heal from their lower-body injuries. With those two back, Nemeth potentially coming out of COVID protocol and spare defenseman Jarred Tinordi recalled from his conditioning assignment with AHL Hartford, the Rangers will be just about at full health for whenever their next game is.
With 42 points at the break, the Rangers are three points ahead of fourth-place Pittsburgh in the Metropolitan Division and nine ahead of Detroit, which holds the final wild-card spot in the Eastern Conference. Boston, which has the most points of any Eastern Conference team not currently in a playoff spot, is 12 points back.
The Bruins have played only 26 games, four fewer than the Rangers, so they will have opportunities to gain ground. And with 52 games remaining for the Blueshirts, that’s plenty of time — especially in this era of COVID-19 in which circumstances can change quickly — for things to slip away.
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.
