Gerard Gallant sticking out Rangers forwards’ defensive troubles
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BUFFALO — Rangers head coach Gerard Gallant is trying his best to slow his usually quick trigger finger from changing the team’s lines as often.
The forwards, however, haven’t been giving Gallant many reasons to keep them together recently — especially because of their defense. Patience will be key for the Rangers during this time of integrating new faces. The reward could be well worth the risk of letting the current lines continue to mesh and figure each other out.
If the defensive lapses continue at this rate, however, Gallant may feel inclined to make some adjustments sooner rather than later.
“We want to win, we want to win every night,” Gallant said. “You’re putting your lines together you hope that you can roll with those lines and they’re playing well, but that’s not the case right now. We’re playing OK. We’ve got to be better than OK. I think our team is better than an OK team. We’ve got to get it together, and hopefully I don’t got to mess up with the lines.
“I’m not going to put up with it for very much longer if it’s going to be turnovers, turnovers, two-on-one’s against. We can’t keep doing that, but you want to trust your players, you want to give them a chance and that’s what we’re doing.”
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The Rangers’ top nine have experienced some up-and-down play lately, which is partially due to skating shorthanded for a few games and all the outside noise surrounding the trade deadline. There has been minimal movement among the forward lines compared to earlier this season.
It was only after Patrick Kane was acquired that the top six were reshaped to feature Vladimir Tarasenko on the top line with Mika Zibanejad and Chris Kreider, while Kane slotted onto the right wing of the second line next to Artemi Panarin and Vincent Trocheck. That second unit has only logged 38:04 of ice time together, per Natural Stat Trick, but has been on for two Rangers goals and three against.
Alexis Lafreniere, Filip Chytil and Kaapo Kakko have skated together for 18 straight games. It wasn’t until recently that the Kid Line fell a bit out of sync. Since Feb. 18, according to Natural Stat Trick, the youngsters have only been on the ice for two Rangers goals and six against, including the two they gave up Thursday night at Montreal.
The Kid Line has been the Rangers’ best unit at times, so it’s up for debate whether the best thing to do is to separate it. It’s likely that Gallant will give the lines some more time to jell before making any changes, and even then, those changes probably won’t be too drastic.
“Obviously other than Vladi and Kaner coming in, everyone’s been playing with each other before,” Zibanejad said. “But it’s still, you know, now we kind of know the lines. I’m hoping it stays like that for a bit. And I think it’s just understanding how each line needs to play. We want to play the same style, we want to do the same things, but each line might do it a little bit differently. Now, with Kreids and Vladi, figuring it out, I think it’s coming more and more.”