Despite a four-game road win streak, the New York Rangers must be more disciplined and avoid another six-penalty game as was the case in Saturday’s win.
While the New York Rangers are enjoying their four-game road win streak, a discipline problem that needs to be addressed has become more evident.
Penalties against the Blueshirts have been a prominent issue over the last four games. The situation exploded in Vancouver when the Rangers took six penalties against a Canucks team in the top ten of the NHL (seventh currently) on the power play.
Entering game four of a five-game road trip against the Canucks, the Rangers were perfect on the road trip when down a man. Nine times shorthanded, nine times they were able to kill the penalties off.
In Vancouver on Saturday, the team decided to push the envelope, taking six penalties in the game.
Leading by a goal late in the third period, Filip Chytil was penalized for closing his hand on the puck, taking penalty number six for the team. Here lies where the perfect road trip penalty kill percentage would end.
Vancouver’s Carson Soucy capitalized for the Canucks with a hard slap shot to force overtime at 15:42.
Up to that penalty kill, the Blueshirts killed 14 straight penalties. Yet one power-play goal against almost cost the Rangers two critical points if not for a great play by Chris Kreider, resulting in the K’Andre Miller game-winner.
“Crazy game,” head coach Peter Laviolette said after the win, which improved the Rangers to 6-2-0. “Good ending for us, but it’s just a night that was dominated by specialty teams and some odd stuff that we had to deal with throughout the course of the game. I like the fact that we stayed in it, kept battling.”
Mollie Walker of The New York Post
Penalty Killing needs to Improve
Regardless of how successful the penalty kill has been this season, the team ranks 13th in the NHL.
- Entering Monday’s game against Winnipeg, the team has been shorthanded 28 times while allowing five goals.
- The Blueshirts have killed off 82.1% of the penalties called against them.
Barclay Goodrow is an essential component of the penalty kill
A primary part of the penalty unit is forward Barclay Goodrow. He played in his 500th career game on Saturday night, becoming just the 49th player to go undrafted, play at least 500 career games, and win two Stanley Cups.
Goodrow is a valuable asset to the team, as Laviolette stated after Saturday’s win.
“He’s a leader on this team and somebody that you count on to play physical, kill penalties, multi-positional player,” Rangers head coach Peter Laviolette said. “I think a team has a lot of different entities to it, and certainly to have a guy that plays the game the way he does, he’s valuable to our team.”
Mollie Walker
Goodrow is averaging 11:12 time on ice this season.
Follow Frank on X at @RangerProud