Colin Stephenson: How the Rangers are proving the skeptics wrong
Rangers goaltender Dylan Garand protects the net against the Tampa Bay Lightning in the second period of an NHL hockey game at Madison Square Garden on Tuesday. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
GREENBURGH – “You are what your record says you are,” the great Bill Parcells said.
Well, the Rangers’ record is 6-2 – 5-0 at Madison Square Garden, including two wins over a Tampa Bay Lightning team loaded with talent, experience and winning pedigree – and their 12 points are tied with the Vegas Golden Knights for second-most in the league, one behind the defending Stanley Cup champions, Carolina. Their plus-13 goal differential is the best in the league.
So, if the Rangers are what their record says they are, then they’re a good team, right?
“It's fun to stand behind the bench and watch these guys compete, and listening to the chatter on the bench, and the team talk on the bench in between shifts. And they're cheering for each other,” coach Mike Sullivan said after Tuesday’s 4-1 win over the Lightning. “Guys block shots and they're getting lots of taps coming back to the bench, and doing a lot of the thankless jobs that don't necessarily show up on the scoresheet, but they add up to winning.”
Tuesday’s win, with rookie Dylan Garand in goal, standing in for the injured Igor Shesterkin, was positively uplifting for a team that has missed the playoffs the past two seasons. Up until that win, skeptics could dismiss the Rangers’ early season record by saying they had benefited from a relatively easy schedule.
They’d beaten a good Utah team playing the second night of a back-to-back, and a Detroit team that is a complete mess because of the uncomfortable Dylan Larkin situation and the Simon Edvinsson holdout. They also took down an Islanders team that started a goalie who hadn’t played in the NHL in nearly two years, and a Vancouver team that had the worst record in the league last season and isn’t very good this season either.
But the two wins over Tampa Bay – by an aggregate score of 9-2 – are enough to give a skeptic pause.
“It’s the NHL, and regardless of who you're playing or what the schedule says... We have so much team speed, and guys that are willing to put their bodies on the line and be physical,” defenseman Braden Schneider said at practice Wednesday. “I think… we can go up against anyone.”
People were willing to write off the first win over Tampa Bay to the fact that it was the Lightning’s first game of the season, and they clearly weren’t in sync that night. But the win Tuesday was impressive. Garand, who was making his sixth NHL start, maybe wasn’t spectacular, but he didn’t have to be. He simply was in position for every shot, saw every shot, and stopped 25 of the 26 that he faced.
“I think that's something that we've kind of improved on from last year, and it's been a focus, is just defending the guts of the ice,’’ said Schneider. “I feel like that has been something we've been so good at, is (limiting) the secondary chances, the shots from the inside, those really ‘Grade A’ looks… I think we've done such a good job at managing those chances, and limiting the scary Grade A looks that we were giving up a lot last year.”
For defenseman Sean Durzi, one of eight new players on the retooled roster this season, the key to how they’re thriving is they have narrowed their focus. They are not looking at the big picture, Durzi said, but simply focused on what they have to do to get through each day, and each game.
“It’s not, ‘We won six out of our first eight, we're gonna win the Stanley Cup,’ ’’ he said. “The group's focused, and then we move on to the next day. (Thursday) we have Jersey. We know there's a task at hand. We show up. You're only as good as your last game, is a good one I like to hear.”
Their last game was a good one. They got two goals from the red-hot Alexis Lafreniere, played the Lightning even in regards to high-danger scoring chances (12-12 for the game, according to Natural Stat Trick) and they once again were the better team in the third period, producing 1.22 Expected Goals For versus 0.46 Expected Goals Against.
Seventy-six games remain, beginning with Thursday’s visit to Newark to play the Devils. That’s a lot of games to be without their best player, Shesterkin, who is out for the year with a lower-body injury. Whether Garand can hold up all season, or the injured Joonas Korpisalo will come back in a few weeks and help out, or whether they’ll need to trade for some goaltending help along the way, all remains to be seen.
But after eight games, the Rangers’ record says they’re good.
And maybe they actually are.
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.
