I really, really liked the way Gallant made the lines for Monday’s game. Panarin — Mika — Kreider Lafreniere — Chytil — Kakko Goodrow — Trocheck — Vesey First line is just ridiculously talented. The kids all play better when together. The third line is a grind you down and pester you line. Trocheck fits this soooo much better than with Panarin.
Putting your best players on your top line - What a concept. Gallant should have done that a year ago.
They have these super fan commercials that are beyond cringe-worthy. The folk guitarist with his weak acoustic tribute to Ranger fans. The fat dork with long hair texting his friends during games. Its such a bad look its like its almost got to be a joke.
One of the problems with ex-players as coaches is that they can favor the vets to a ridiculous extent over the younger players. Half the coaches in the league were NHL players at some point so it's not like it's an enormous competitive disadvantage over time but it can really suck at times when the kids are coming along slowly.
Don't get me wrong, it's a difficult situation the Rangers have to balance. Typically, teams that win back to back draft lotteries with 2OA and 1OA don't have one of the best goalies in the league, one of the best defenseman in the league, Mika Zibanejad, Chris Kreider, and Artemi Panarin. Given their cap space next season, the Rangers last real chance to truly load up at the deadline is right now. Next year, they won't have any cap at the deadline, maybe 1M if anything. With that being said, I think Gallant shows blatant favoritism towards "his guys", youth be damned. There's a reason he doesn't last for more than 3 years on any team.
Yeah I was thinking it seems like forever to the next game. Hopefully we come back from the break and GG has decided the kids are line 2 until they prove otherwise. Panarin - Zibanejad - (Kravtsov/Vesey) Lafreniere - Chytil - Kakko Kreider - Trocheck - (Vesey/Kravtsov) Cuylle - (Goodrow/Leschyshysn) - (Gauthier/Goodrow) The Rangers almost have too much depth at this point because you really want Kravtsov, Vesey, Goodrow, Gauthier and Leschyshysn all to get ice time and there's no room for that. And Blais still lurking in Hartford until the trade deadline.
Leschyshysn shouldn’t be getting ice time over Kravtsov, but here we are. Kravtsov is going to get traded at the deadline and Blais will either get waived or traded as well. Panarin - Mika - Vesey Laf - Chytil - Kakko Kreider - Trocheck - Goodrow Gauthier - Leschyshyn - Whoever the hell I forgot
Vesey's been playing with Kreider and Mika off and on for most of the season. He's probably got the 4th most minutes in the 1st line this year. Now that GG has decided that Panarin and Zibanejad have to play together and that Kreider and Trocheck mesh well the choices at RW on line 1 are either Kravtsov or Vesey and GG does not like Kravtsov. The 4th LW is likely to stay Cuylle for now. The Rangers promoted him and now they need to give him some ice time. Not a lot but enough to motivate him to practice hard and maintain his form.
Vesey is probably their only "swiss army" knife player that can handle top 6. Goodrow isn't that guy. I'd run Vesey top 6 until the deadline; I don't like Vesey in that spot, but it's the best option for now.
He's played 114 minutes with Kreider and Mika. 2nd most minutes on the first line with Kreider and Mika. He's a really really solid player
