Rangers Have Lots to Work On Despite Leading Series Over the Panthers as they finally signed a deal with Flyers Defenseman
Since Game 4 of the second round against the Carolina Hurricanes, the New York Rangers have not been all that great.
They have not played well defensively, they have not been careful with the puck, some of their big guns have gone quiet, and they have not looked like the team that was the best in the league during the regular season.
Nevertheless, the Blueshirts find themselves with a 2-1 series lead over the Florida Panthers in the Eastern Conference Finals. Both wins came in overtime on goals by Barclay Goodrow in Game 2 and Alex Wennberg in Game 3.
The truth is that the Rangers are lucky to be leading this series. The team was outplayed in Games 1 and 3 and has not looked good in this series.
As such, if this team wants to get back to playing the right way and insert themselves in this series, they need to make a few corrections. If they are not able to fix things, the Panthers can easily get back into this series and maybe even win it.
Let’s start with players that need to be much better for the Blueshirts. The first player that needs to be a lot better is defenseman K’Andre Miller.
Miller has looked terrible against the Panthers. He has coughed up the puck a lot, has gotten himself out of position on several plays, and has looked lost in his own zone.
For Miller to be successful, he must simplify his game. That means being careful with the puck, not being too aggressive, and staying focused on defending.
Miller’s defense partner, Jacob Trouba, also needs to be a lot better. He took three penalties in Game 3 (now has 20 penalty minutes in the playoffs), has also been careless with the puck, and like Miller, has gotten caught out of position.
Mika Zibanejad is another player that needs to be better. He is snakebitten as he has yet to record a point in this series and has not looked like himself.
After getting off to a hot start in this postseason, Zibanejad has gone quiet at the wrong time. That needs to change in a hurry if the Rangers want to advance, so Zibanejad needs to do a better job of getting himself into prime scoring areas and he needs to not be afraid to shoot the puck.
Speaking of being quiet in their series against the Panthers, Rangers forward Chris Kreider has all of a sudden lost his magic scoring touch. He needs to go back to making himself big in front of the opposing goaltender and putting the puck in the net because someone on the team’s first line needs to score since guys like Zibanejad, Filip Chytil, and Jack Roslovic have not contributed much in terms of scoring goals.
