Three takeaways from the Rangers' 5-0-1 start to the regular season
Ryan Lindgren of the Rangers and Joel Armia of the Montreal Canadiens battle along the boards for the puck during the first period at the Bell Centre on Wednesday in Montreal. Credit: Getty Images/Minas Panagiotakis
The Rangers have gotten out of the gate quickly, going undefeated in regulation in their first six games, earning 11 of a possible 12 points and setting a team record for longest points streak to begin a season. They’ve won four straight and just swept a three-game road trip through Detroit, Toronto and Montreal. And they’ve scored a whopping 31 goals, second most in the NHL behind the Devils, who have played three more games than they have.
As they get ready to face the Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers Thursday at the Garden for the first time since losing to them in the Eastern Conference finals last spring, here are three takeaways on the Rangers’ fast start.
1. With Ryan Lindgren healthy, their defense looks solid.
Lindgren made his season debut Tuesday in the 7-2 win over Montreal after recovering from surgery to repair a jaw injury suffered in a preseason fight with the Islanders’ Scott Mayfield.
Coach Peter Laviolette started Lindgren out on the third pair, partnered with rookie Victor Mancini. In 14:52 together, the Rangers were outshot 6-5, according to Natural Stat Trick, but the score was 1-1, and the scoring chances were 12-6 in favor of the Rangers. High-danger scoring chances were 4-3 in the Rangers' favor.
“Obviously, my first time playing with him, but such a such a smart hockey player, the way he sees the ice, reads the game,’’ Lindgren said of Mancini. “He's incredibly skilled, so he's a heck of a player.’’
If Laviolette keeps the pair together for a while, that means Lindgren, normally the top pair partner for Adam Fox, will be playing on the third pair. So that makes the defense deep. At the moment, there’s no urgency to put Lindgren back with Fox because Fox and his current partner, K’Andre Miller, are putting up great analytics. And so are the Braden Schneider-Jacob Trouba pair.
2. That third line is a real weapon.
On a night when Artemi Panarin and Alexis Lafreniere just kept hitting goalposts and crossbars, the third line of Filip Chytil, Will Cuylle and Kaapo Kakko put their shots into the net. Kakko scored his first goal of the season and had his first career three-point game. Chytil had two goals (one a power play goal) and three points, and Cuylle had two assists.
“One game we score, another game they score,’’ Chytil said of his line vs. the Panarin-Vincent Trocheck-Lafreniere line. “The season is long, and they played great hockey today as well. And sometimes it is like that. They had a lot of chances. And we know how it works. We had a lot of chances in previous games, and we didn't score. Today, it was our turn.’’
According to Natural Stat Trick, the Cuylle-Chytil-Kakko line has outscored opponents 7-0 at 5-on-5 and produced 20 high-danger chances, compared to allowing nine against.
3. To be fair, they have kind of eased into the season.
Of their five wins, only one has come against a team (Toronto) that currently has a winning record. Two of their wins were against Detroit, which is 3-3, but the other wins have come against Montreal and Pittsburgh, neither of whom looks very good. Let’s see what they look like against Florida, which has been banged up but is 4-3-1 and got Matthew Tkachuk (illness) back on Tuesday and could have Aleksander Barkov (lower body injury) back in time to face the Rangers.
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.
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