Fifteen games was enough for the New York Rangers to decide their top power-play look needed a tweak.
Ahead of Tuesday’s matchup with the St. Louis Blues, coach Mike Sullivan is making a notable personnel switch on PP1, moving captain J.T. Miller out and replacing him with 21-year-old Gabe Perreault, who gets bumped up from the second unit.
Miller has been used in a few different spots on the man advantage this season, including net front, bumper, and the perimeter, but the production hasn’t followed. He has just one power-play goal and two points with the extra man.
Perreault, meanwhile, has three power-play assists despite logging far fewer minutes on PP1. The catch is that he has only one point overall - a goal - in his past eight games.
The rest of the top unit stays intact with Adam Fox, Mika Zibanejad, Alexis Lafreniere, and Pavel Dorofeyev.
The Rangers’ power play has been stuck in neutral for a while now. They’ve scored only three power-play goals over their past eight games and went 0-for-2 in Monday’s 4-1 loss to the Edmonton Oilers. At 20.0 percent, they’re tied for 18th in the NHL, and Lafreniere’s two goals are the only power-play tallies by any Blueshirt with more than one.
Sullivan said Monday the staff had waited long enough to see if the original group would click.
“I felt like we’ve been patient with that first group for a long time, trying to get it to work,” Sullivan explained Monday. “My college coach (at Boston University) Jack Parker always used to used to say when you’re putting power-play groups together, it probably makes a lot of sense to start with what you deem the five best players and then go from there.
And so that’s what we did. We’ve worked hard at it.
Those guys have worked hard at it to try to get it to work. I just think at this particular point in time, I could feel or sense an element of frustration just because these guys care deeply.”
Miller didn’t sound thrilled, but he did back the decision.
“We’ve been way below our standard, I think, so far. I even think when we were scoring goals earlier on we were opportunistic,” he said Monday.
“At some point, you’ve got to do a little shakeup. Typically when we do that, we get some juice and try to go from there.”
The Rangers’ lineup discussion doesn’t stop there. There’s also a breakdown of the club’s move to put Will Cuylle at center, which is being framed as an intriguing outside-the-box idea from Sullivan.
Elsewhere around the Rangers, there’s fresh reaction to the team’s new Hometown Remix jerseys, which were unveiled Monday along with the rest of the league’s 31 other clubs. There’s also a look at five key November storylines, including the need to get the goaltending sorted out, plus a week-ahead preview that centers on the start of an important four-game road trip.
Around the NHL, Nikita Kucherov addressed reporters for the first time since his trade request with the Tampa Bay Lightning and said his desire to move on has nothing to do with money, despite being a pending unrestricted free agent next summer.
Ryan Dixon also laid out why the Washington Capitals should make a serious push to trade for Kucherov.
In Chicago, the Blackhawks dropped a 5-2 decision to the Colorado Avalanche on Monday and also lost Patrick Kane for “the next couple games” because of an upper-body injury.
The Avalanche, meanwhile, got a positive response to recent adversity and uneven play in that win, according to Aarif Deen.
And in Seattle, Shane Wright said he wanted to set the record straight, telling the media he didn’t exactly request a trade from the Kraken before they dealt him the other day to the Nashville Predators.
In Other News...
Adam Edstrm Is Making The Rangers Regret This One
Adam Edstrms move out of New York looked like a fairly routine depth shuffle at the time, the kind of transaction that barely registers once the roster churn settles. But after the Rangers sent him to Nashville, the big forward quickly found a more defined role with the Predators and has started to show the blend of size and finishing ability that made him an intriguing piece in the first place.
In Nashville, Edstrm has been getting more ice time and the results have followed, with five goals and an assist in 14 games along with strong underlying numbers. It has only sharpened the contrast with how he was viewed in New York, where former head coach Mike Sullivan publicly questioned his consistency while Edstrm was working back from injuries, leaving the Rangers with a familiar what-if as his game starts to click elsewhere. [Read more 🡒]
Rangers Make Another Forward Shuffle With One Roster Spot In Focus
The Rangers continued their forward juggling act by recalling Jaroslav Chmelar from AHL Hartford and sending Taylor Raddysh back the other way, another small but telling move as the club keeps sorting through its depth options. Chmelar has already gotten into seven NHL games this season, while Raddysh has had a brief run with the big club after his latest recall, and both have been productive enough in Hartford to stay in the conversation.
For the Rangers, the timing matters as much as the transaction itself. Chmelar is back in the mix after his earlier look at the NHL level, and Raddyshs status gives the team something to weigh as it manages its roster spot and decides who best fits the next stretch of games. The shuffle leaves one opening worth watching, especially with both forwards still trying to turn their AHL production into a steadier role in New York. [Read more 🡒]
Rangers Face An Early Season Test They Can't Afford To Fail
The Rangers are trying to steady themselves after a rough stretch that has left them searching for traction early in the season. Recent play has put them in a difficult spot in the Metropolitan Division and the Eastern Conference, and the next few days offer a chance to start changing the conversation before the schedule gets tougher again.
Home games against the Blues and Flyers now loom as an important reset before the club heads out on its first major road trip of the season. With Pavel Dorofeyev and Dylan Garand drawing attention for their recent performances, the Rangers have at least a few individual bright spots to lean on, but the bigger question is whether those can translate into the kind of team results they need right away. [Read more 🡒]