Rangers' defense pairs remain intact despite subpar effort against Capitals

GREENBURGH — Essentially, Peter Laviolette was saying, what took place Tuesday night against the Capitals in Washington was an aberration.

Although he and his coaching staff discussed making changes, the decision was made to keep the Rangers’ defense pairings intact. The body of work over eight games outweighed one admittedly subpar performance.

“We addressed it and moved on,” Laviolette said after practice Thursday afternoon at the MSG Training Center.

The Rangers (6-2-1) will get their first chance to apply the lessons learned from their defensive misadventures on Friday night at the Garden against the Ottawa Senators, who average 4.22 goals per game (third-best in the NHL entering Thursday night’s games).

In their worst defensive performance of the season, the Rangers spent much of the 60 minutes at Capital One Arena chasing the game.

The Capitals outshot the Rangers 46-19 and had an 84-49 advantage in shot attempts.

“They outcompeted us,” defenseman Braden Schneider said. “Plain and simple. It was everything that we didn’t do. We didn’t come out and play the game that we expect ourselves to play. We know what we need to do to be better and we’re [going to] make sure we right a wrong [Friday].”

With the Rangers trailing 4-3 entering the third period, Laviolette broke up his top two defense pairs, putting Ryan Lindgren with Adam Fox and K’Andre Miller with Jacob Trouba.

“I think the other night is a little more of a reflection of just not being a good performance,” Laviolette said. “So you need to bounce back and right that.”

To that end, during the 50-minute practice that was constructed around breakouts and tight-quarter battle drills, he reunited Miller and Fox and reassembled the second pairing of Lindgren and Trouba.

The third pair from the Washington game — Schneider and Victor Mancini — remained status quo. Matt Rempe and Zac Jones rotated in as the fourth pair, a likely indicator that both could be healthy scratches Friday night.

“In the bigger picture, they’ve been pretty good,” Laviolette said of the Miller-Fox tandem.

That’s putting it mildly.

According to data culled by NaturalStatTrick.com, the Rangers’ top defense pair has a 64.18% High Danger Chances For rate, a 62.02% Shots For rate, a 63.18 Fenwick For rate, and a 61.48% Corsi For rate.

To summarize: The pairing has generated offense when they have been on the ice together. Add their portfolio to Laviolette’s desire for stability on the back end and he is going to stay with what has worked this season. He also will determine whether Mancini or Jones will be Schneider’s regular partner on the third pair.

“We’re still looking at it,” Laviolette said when asked if Mancini or Jones has a leg up on the other for the sixth defenseman role. “There’s going to be decisions as long as you have extra players.”

Schneider said he is comfortable playing with either Mancini or Jones. Schneider, a natural righthanded shot, plays on his strong side when paired with Jones and is on his off hand when partnered with Mancini. “Going lefty-righty, the way our offense works, you kind of end up on both sides anyway,” Schneider said.

Notes & quotes: Jimmy Vesey (lower body) wore a blue contact jersey and was a full participant in practice.