Rangers' power play trending downward in April
Rangers left wing Chris Kreider plays the puck in front of Hurricanes goaltender Frederik Andersen during the second period at Madison Square Garden on Tuesday. Credit: Brad Penner
PHILADELPHIA — All season long, one of the things that had carried the Rangers to their sterling record and lofty position in the standings had been their power play. Through the end of March, the Blueshirts were second in the league in power-play success, connecting on 27.1% of their man-advantage opportunities.
But that success seems to have dried up in April.
Entering Wednesday’s road game against the Flyers, the Rangers had scored a power-play goal in just one of their six games in the month, getting two in the 3-1 win over the Devils in New Jersey last Tuesday. They were 2-for-16 on the power play in April, and though they remained second-best in the league, their success rate had dropped to 25.9% overall — still great, but definitely trending in the wrong direction.
On Tuesday, the Rangers went 0-for-4 on the power play in their 4-2 loss to the Carolina Hurricanes, who have the best penalty-kill unit in the league. They managed four shots on goal with the 5-on-4 man advantage.
“The power play was disjointed,’’ said Chris Kreider, who did score his 50th goal of the season in a man-advantage situation, with the Rangers skating 6-on-5 after pulling their goalie at the end of the game.
“The timing was off, the speed was off,’’ Kreider said. “And they've got a very good penalty kill, but at the same time, we have to find a way to get in the [offensive] zone.’’
“They're a good kill for a reason,’’ Adam Fox said of the Hurricanes. “I think once we got set up, we were able to move it a little bit. But we had trouble getting in a little bit. And sometimes it goes like that.’’
There was a time earlier in the season where teams made a concerted effort to try and avoid taking penalties against the Rangers, who had trouble generating goals at even strength. Eventually, though, they would take one or two late in the game, and the Rangers would come up clutch on the power play with a big goal to win or tie the score.
They couldn’t do that against the Hurricanes Tuesday, though. And in a copycat league such as the NHL, teams will go to school on what the Hurricanes did to the Rangers, how they applied pressure in the right spots and at the right times to frustrate Fox and Kreider and their mates.
According to coach Gerard Gallant, though, the Rangers’ recent struggles with the man advantage have less to do with what opposing teams are doing to them, and more to do with what the Rangers are not doing as well as usual.
“There's no doubt that teams are going to look at [video], but the bottom line is, we didn't execute well,’’ Gallant said of the Carolina game. “You can do what you want as a PK, but when [we had] the extra man, we just didn't execute our plays as well as we usually do. And that was a big thing for me. It hasn't been as good the last week-and-a-half.
“But the plays are still there,’’ he said. “You can't take it away. I mean, teams force you, and they pressure you, but when they do that, they usually give up good chances. And we just haven't taken advantage of those the last few games.’’
One theory Kreider posited Tuesday was that his march to 50 goals may have been something of a distraction to his teammates, who he believed were looking to set him up for the milestone goal.
Now that that is out of the way, Kreider hopes things can get back to normal.
“We've got some absolutely incredible people in that room who were pulling for me, and that means the world to me,’’ he said. “But put it behind us, and everyone can go back to shooting the puck and I can go back to screening the goalie.’’
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.
