Player Discussion David Quinn: Part VI

[GoAwayPanarin]

So, I don’t expect any announcements today. Maybe tomorrow? What’s the teams breakup schedule look like? I assume day off today and then clear out tomorrow?

If so, perhaps we get an announcement on Tuesday? If not by then, do we just assume that this guy will be back next year?

I think we’ll hear something one way or another by the end of next week.

If he’s staying not in a formal announcement, but Larry or someone will get word and tell us about it.

 

[RGY]

“There are shortcomings, too. Faceoffs have been a disaster since before Vigneault walked in the room. The power play is inconsistent. The coach wants his players to shoot the puck more and they don’t, preferring the extra pass. He wants them to be more careful between the blue lines, and they often aren’t. He wants them to spend more time in the offensive zone, and not just rely on pretty one-and-done rush chances. He definitely wants them to have more battle level in their collective game, and at times they have had that despite their DNA.”

This right here is the issue though. No matter who likes or doesn’t like the coach, he cannot get his team as a whole to do all those things that matter in winning the tight games against better teams. Faceoffs, Special Teams, Neutral Zone play, Offensive zone time being increased by heavy cycle and board play, switching to north-south with success when east-west isnt working... those all sound nice because they are all the right things, but DQ cannot get them to play that way. He can want those things all he wants but he isnt getting it.

Its time for a change.

 

[Mike in Houston]

It really doesn't matter who the coach is because this fanbase won't be able to run them out of town fast enough.

 

[tomobson]

Carp and the likes don't really know much more than us it seems and the few times they do it's pretty obvious when they are leaked something. In this one he's just guessing like everyone else here is doing. Drury and Quinn are buddies so Quinn might stay. All he's saying pretty much. Fact is the owner hates the culture of the team and that's all on Quinn.

 

[chosen]

“There are shortcomings, too. Faceoffs have been a disaster since before Vigneault walked in the room. The power play is inconsistent. The coach wants his players to shoot the puck more and they don’t, preferring the extra pass. He wants them to be more careful between the blue lines, and they often aren’t. He wants them to spend more time in the offensive zone, and not just rely on pretty one-and-done rush chances. He definitely wants them to have more battle level in their collective game, and at times they have had that despite their DNA.”

This right here is the issue though. No matter who likes or doesn’t like the coach, he cannot get his team as a whole to do all those things that matter in winning the tight games against better teams. Faceoffs, Special Teams, Neutral Zone play, Offensive zone time being increased by heavy cycle and board play, switching to north-south with success when east-west isnt working... those all sound nice because they are all the right things, but DQ cannot get them to play that way. He can want those things all he wants but he isnt getting it.

Its time for a change.

No coach in the history of hockey can make players much better at faceoffs or everyone would get better at faceoffs, which isn't even possible.

Players don't change all that much in style. McDavid is never going to be a physical punisher. Non-tough guys don't become tough guys and that's why you can expect some big roster changes, other than a maniac is now in charge, officially.

Good luck getting Panarin to become a North-South player, and it would take away from his being special.

 

[chosen]

Carp and the likes don't really know much more than us it seems and the few times they do it's pretty obvious when they are leaked something. In this one he's just guessing like everyone else here is doing. Drury and Quinn are buddies so Quinn might stay. All he's saying pretty much. Fact is the owner hates the culture of the team and that's all on Quinn.

He seems to know what the players think about Quinn and it stands in stark contrast to the posters who claimed, with zero evidence, that Quinn had lost the room.

 

[chosen]

Carp and the likes don't really know much more than us it seems and the few times they do it's pretty obvious when they are leaked something. In this one he's just guessing like everyone else here is doing. Drury and Quinn are buddies so Quinn might stay. All he's saying pretty much. Fact is the owner hates the culture of the team and that's all on Quinn.

If it's all on Quinn, why were Gorton and JD fired?

 

[chosen]

It really doesn't matter who the coach is because this fanbase won't be able to run them out of town fast enough.

That is the equivalent of a mathematical constant.

 

[Mike in Houston]

If it's all on Quinn, why were Gorton and JD fired?

So Drury can conduct all the exit interviews.

 

[tomobson]

He seems to know what the players think about Quinn and it stands in stark contrast to the posters who claimed, with zero evidence, that Quinn had lost the room.

I don't know about all that. He went all out earlier this season saying it was ludicrous thinking that Quinn won't be here next year and before you know it the gm and president are fired. He's just sticking to his story and giving us his opinions. Don't really think we should put much stock into it.

And on your other post I should have said Quinn and Management. Gorton didn't give him much to work with in the tough department but Quinn couldn't get this team to form any kind of identity at all. We were cap strapped so I was fine giving the front office more time but Quinn proved he wasn't ready to coach in the NHL.

 

[fm]

Because a boozy billionaire had a hissy fit

 

[chosen]

So Drury can conduct all the exit interviews.

No.

It means Dolan was unhappy with them and that means it's not all Quinn's fault in the eyes of the loon.

 

[chosen]

I don't know about all that. He went all out earlier this season saying it was ludicrous thinking that Quinn won't be here next year and before you know it the gm and president are fired. He's just sticking to his story and giving us his opinions. Don't really think we should put much stock into it.

And on your other post I should have said Quinn and Management. Gorton didn't give him much to work with in the tough department but Quinn couldn't get this team to form any kind of identity at all. We were cap strapped so I was fine giving the front office more time but Quinn proved he wasn't ready to coach in the NHL.

If you say management failed to give good enough personnel to the coach, how do you then draw the conclusion that the coach proved he wasn't good enough?

If you thought the personnel was good enough it would seem a reasonable conclusion.

I don't know how good a coach Quinn is, but unless it were possible to run a team in two parallel universes with different coaches, I'm not sure what's a reasonable expectation for a team.

I do know that almost no one thought the Rangers would be in the playoffs and they didn't miss by much. If I told you before the season that Zib would lose his eye-hand coordination for half the season to Covid, that ADA would miss the entire season, and Panarin would get Putined, almost every single person here would have opined that the Rangers were most likely in the running for a top lottery pick, and that didn't happen.

 

[chosen]

If you say management failed to give good enough personnel to the coach, how do you then draw the conclusion that the coach proved he wasn't good enough?

If you thought the personnel was good enough it would seem a reasonable conclusion.

I don't know how good a coach Quinn is, but unless it were possible to run a team in two parallel universes with different coaches, I'm not sure what's a reasonable expectation for a team.

I do know that almost no one thought the Rangers would be in the playoffs and they didn't miss by much. If I told you before the season that Zib would lose his eye-hand coordination for half the season to Covid, that ADA would miss the entire season, and Panarin would get Putined, almost every single person here would have opined that the Rangers were most likely in the running for a top lottery pick, and that didn't happen.

Edit: The team had an identity, but it's not a recipe for success if an entire team is slick, but that's the personnel the Rangers had this season. I think it was the right way to go in a season of low expectations.

Carp was definitely right that Gorton and JD knew this because all of us knew it and changes to address it were coming.

 

[tomobson]

If you say management failed to give good enough personnel to the coach, how do you then draw the conclusion that the coach proved he wasn't good enough?

If you thought the personnel was good enough it would seem a reasonable conclusion.

I don't know how good a coach Quinn is, but unless it were possible to run a team in two parallel universes with different coaches, I'm not sure what's a reasonable expectation for a team.

I do know that almost no one thought the Rangers would be in the playoffs and they didn't miss by much. If I told you before the season that Zib would lose his eye-hand coordination for half the season to Covid, that ADA would miss the entire season, and Panarin would get Putined, almost every single person here would have opined that the Rangers were most likely in the running for a top lottery pick, and that didn't happen.

I never said he didn't have good personnel. He wasn't given the traditional 'tough' players but he preached toughness and north south play all season and the team never bought into it. We have a young team and these guys should be hungry to prove their worth to the coach and instead we hear the coach whine most post games about how the team is not doing what he's coaching. That seems like a major problem to me.

 

[RGY]

No coach in the history of hockey can make players much better at faceoffs or everyone would get better at faceoffs, which isn't even possible.

Players don't change all that much in style. McDavid is never going to be a physical punisher. Non-tough guys don't become tough guys and that's why you can expect some big roster changes, other than a maniac is now in charge, officially.

Good luck getting Panarin to become a North-South player, and it would take away from his being special.

Wait so no Coach in the history of hockey knows how to coach his team on faceoffs?

Simply pinpointing Panarin as part of your counter is disingenuous. No, I am not expecting Panarin to be a north-south player. But what about his linemates? What about Strome? So in those games against those Islanders where that line completely disappeared, you were just ok with it? If Panarin isnt going to be that guy, someone else needs to be. Someone needs to go to the dirty areas and then some. And since Panarin is especially not that guy, you need to overcompensate a bit and have both of the other linemates doing that work and doing it successfully. Not some fly by no contact play as the puck is moved back up the ice because thats another thing, this team doesnt finish their checks nearly enough.

So if Panarin and Zib are not those guys, then you need the 10 other forwards to be those guys. Problem is no one was really successful at a north-south style.

 

[chosen]

Wait so no Coach in the history of hockey knows how to coach his team on faceoffs?

Simply pinpointing Panarin as part of your counter is disingenuous. No, I am not expecting Panarin to be a north-south player. But what about his linemates? What about Strome? So in those games against those Islanders where that line completely disappeared, you were just ok with it? If Panarin isnt going to be that guy, someone else needs to be. Someone needs to go to the dirty areas and then some. And since Panarin is especially not that guy, you need to overcompensate a bit and have both of the other linemates doing that work and doing it successfully. Not some fly by no contact play as the puck is moved back up the ice because thats another thing, this team doesnt finish their checks nearly enough.

So if Panarin and Zib are not those guys, then you need the 10 other forwards to be those guys. Problem is no one was really successful at a north-south style.

I have zero problems with the argument that the personnel wasn't well-rounded enough. You can't put square objects into round holes.

The most important part of a team is high-end players. It's tough to find them.

The Rangers have the best stable of young, high-end players in their history. The problem is they're all arriving at the same time.

If we had used a bunch of sandpaper north-south players this season, Laf, Kakko, and Kravtsov would have seen even less time, which would have driven posters here off a cliff.

You can't have both.

Management knew that, just like you did, and the coming off-season was to be the re-tooling part of the rebuild, and it still will be, only now there is a downright moron making the decisions, unless he was just on one of his benders and will disappear, again.

Hopefully.

 

[Clark Kellogg]

“We have a really good talented players at different levels of their careers, different ages, different contract status some lottery picks here and there, some high picks but I think we have to get to a place where when you step over the boards you know exactly what your role is, exactly what you are doing that night and why you are doing it and I think this summer we’ll go along way to defining that”. Rangers G.M. Chis Drury on 05/08/2021.
That could be a damming statement on this coaching staff.
Who’s job is it to may sure each player knows what his role is and who’s responsible if they don’t.
My answer would be the coaching staff.
Full disclosure: I have never been involved in organized sports above Babe Ruth league, so this is a layman’s response.

 

[KirkAlbuquerque]

Why isn't he gone yet

 

[Quinnisinoverhishead]

What is going on? How is he still our coach?

 

[Hi ImHFNYR]

I don't really know who the replacement would be tbh. I think people are underestimating how shit the NHL coaching pool is. There's a reason why the fanbase turns on a lot of coaches. They're actually all shit. It's amusing how shit the coach and GM pool is across the NHL. Lots of nepotism, arrogance and incompetence among those ranks and they get carried to varying degrees of success by the talent on the ice.

The level of dysfunction and the number of organizations that are dysfunctional is baffling

Don't be surprised to see QUinn stay if the locker room is behind him.

I liked Torts but the guy didn't even know how to practice PP when it was shit every year. He also had no clue how to change things up when the team started bringing in more talent.

AV proved how inept Torts was offensively as a coach when he took the same team and got the offense to explode.

Problem was he refused to budge on his imbecilic defensive system and thought turtling with every lead was the most brilliant plan ever despite blowing almost every single SCF game, countless reg season games and multiple PO series. He also coached the guys to not play physical to the point it pissed off some of the vets. He was a f***in idiot who got carried by the goalie bailing his dumb, dipshit system out.

Sure he took Torts team and showed you could get more offense out of them. He also took the same team that refused to blow any 3rd period lead EVER and turned them into choke artists

If torts figures out how to give guys some freedom on offense and learns how to coach a goddamn powerplay he'd be perfect.

 

[CasusBelli]

I like Torts, but he is not the right guy for this team. He is going to stifle offensive creativity and play. I would be terrified to see Lafreniere’s development. We dont need him blocking shots. And its not just Lafreniere I worry about.

By the same token, some of these kids could use a real kick in the ass such as Miller and Chytil.

I just think of how much juice he got out of unremarkable talents in Callahan, Dubi, Anisimov, etc.

 

[JHS]

No coach in the history of hockey can make players much better at faceoffs or everyone would get better at faceoffs, which isn't even possible.

Players don't change all that much in style. McDavid is never going to be a physical punisher. Non-tough guys don't become tough guys and that's why you can expect some big roster changes, other than a maniac is now in charge, officially.

Good luck getting Panarin to become a North-South player, and it would take away from his being special.

Your statement about no coach in history can make a player better at face offs is 100% inaccurate. Face offs and face off plays are some of the most often practiced plays at higher levels of hockey. There are so many shortcuts and “cheats” to improve faceoff skills that coaches bring in. The issue is, at the NHL level everyone knows these same cheats.

A more accurate statement is probably, “coaches can’t make their players dramatically improve.”

 

[Pawnee Rangers]

From Rick Carpinello at The Athletic, yesterday:


I’m pretty sure Nelson Henderson was never an NHL coach.

But I’m also certain that many NHL coaches have lived, and figuratively died, with that phrase.

David Quinn must be one of them, because he was hired by the Rangers three years ago to oversee a rebuild, at least the behind-the-bench part of that rebuild, to develop and nurture and teach the flood of young players into the organization. Well, many of them did indeed make strides this season, some of them major strides, some more modest.

And Quinn had to know — in fact, I’m sure he did — that he might never get to sit in the shade when the team got to the next level, whatever that level turns out to be.

Not to hammer away at this point, but it’s preposterous to me that Jeff Gorton, who devised the plan as general manager, bought the seeds, planted them, did all the heavy lifting of the rebuild, is somehow kicked out by the owner at this point. Completely unhinged. And that John Davidson got two pandemic-shortened seasons as president. But I digress.

So Quinn coached the final game of his third season on Saturday, two of those shortened by a pandemic, and now awaits his fate. For what it’s worth, the greatly depleted roster showed me a hell of a lot, about how they feel for each other and the coach, between Wednesday’s fight fest (and who fought whom) and this most unlikely finale, a 5-4 win over the Bruins in Boston.

There are no guarantees, but I can tell you that Quinn was almost assured of coming back under the leadership of Davidson, Gorton and Chris Drury, who got his first win as president/GM on Saturday in Boston. And I have mentioned this, but Drury had a gigantic hand in hiring Quinn, a friend, out of his alma mater, Boston University.

But given the team owner’s ramblings in the New York Post that he didn’t like the “culture” and that he wasn’t happy with the team’s starts to certain big games, you must conclude that Quinn is very much in the crosshairs. If you know a damn thing about Jim Dolan, too, you have to know that when he said this will be Drury’s call, well, it won’t be totally Drury’s call. It will be a call made by Dolan, his now front-and-center adviser Glen Sather, and Drury. Which changes everything about where the coach stands. Can his odds be any better than 50/50?

This won’t be an exit-meetings (Monday) mutiny like the one orchestrated by a few crybaby players to get John Tortorella to walk the plank in 2013. I don’t expect it will be Alain Vigneault being canned within hours of the final game in Philadelphia — he might have actually been fired on the way back to New York, in 2018.

But, in all likelihood, if Quinn survives until the exit meetings on Monday, then he’s probably going to coach on opening night 2021-22. Then again, some wild cards are now involved in the decision-making process.

To very much consider: When this franchise — which has one Stanley Cup in 81 years — fires a coach, it often results in a worse choice coming in. Emile Francis (three times) to Bernie Geoffrion/Larry Popein/Ron Stewart etc.; Herb Brooks to Ted Sator; Colin Cambell to John Muckler to Ron Low to Bryan Trottier to Sather. Then throw in Dolan’s decisions on the basketball side of the Garden.

There’s another saying in place here, and Billy Martin stole it from Casey Stengel. Half the players on a team, Stengel said, will love you, half will hate you, and the rest are undecided. The key, he said, is to keep the half that hate you away from the undecided.

I don’t think nearly half the team hates Quinn and actually don’t know of anybody who does.

I know for sure some of the most critical players are indeed on his side. I do know that he’s loud and rough on his players at times, and that can get old. I also know he’s arm-around nurturing and attempts to have person-to-person relationships with each of them.

He’s critical after games, even after victories, and that can be wearing. He doesn’t particularly like the East-West game that is preferred by some of his top-skilled players, at least not without some North-South mixed in when needed — like, for example, against teams such as the Islanders and the crowded neutral zone they create. But, believe it or not, he loves the skill that’s here, and the offensive success it brings. It just needs some pepper added to the salt.

The figurative adding of “pepper,” of course, was in the plans of Davidson and Gorton, without question, when they were shown the door. It’s foolish to think they didn’t recognize the need since even before the bubble-sweep by Carolina last summer and the late-season shortcomings of the last few weeks. It would have been addressed and Dolan, we can say with 100 percent certainty, wasn’t the one who figured it out.

As far as Quinn having the room, or the 51 percent Stengel would have wanted, well this is more than a very, very educated guess: He has Mika Zibanejad and Chris Kreider, Adam Fox, Jacob Trouba, Ryan Lindgren, Alexis Lafrenière, K’Andre Miller, Brendan Smith, Colin Blackwell and many of the bottom-sixers. I think he’s won over Pavel Buchnevich, and that he’s got Kaapo Kakko. I know that the coach loves Ryan Strome, the person and player, and I think it’s mutual, even if Strome was buddies with the exiled Tony DeAngelo (who gave Quinn all sorts of credit) and Brendan Lemieux.

Quinn also has great regard for Artemi Panarin. Loves him as a person and a player. Panarin gets the superstar treatment he deserves, too, not that he demands much at all. If Panarin wants a particular linemate, he generally gets him. If he wants to stay out on a long shift, so be it. If he wants to play virtually the entirety of a power play, well, OK. I don’t think there’s any reason to believe that relationship isn’t strong, but not having had any non-video-call access for the last 14 months, who knows for sure?

Do Vitali Kravtsov, banished to Hartford last season, or Filip Chytil, who gets almost no power-play time, have issues with the coach? I don’t know. Does it matter?

In fact, does any of this matter if Dolan doesn’t like the culture? (The correct answer is “no.”)

There are shortcomings, too. Faceoffs have been a disaster since before Vigneault walked in the room. The power play is inconsistent. The coach wants his players to shoot the puck more and they don’t, preferring the extra pass. He wants them to be more careful between the blue lines, and they often aren’t. He wants them to spend more time in the offensive zone, and not just rely on pretty one-and-done rush chances. He definitely wants them to have more battle level in their collective game, and at times they have had that despite their DNA.

But there have been dramatic improvements, too, by the youngest team in the NHL (at least until the Devils had their fire sale). Defensively they tightened up remarkably, though that had slipped lately and then been a wreck since the injuries hit. The penalty kill went from among the worst to among the best in the NHL, also at least until recently. And yes, new assistant coach Jacques Martin deserves gigantic credit for both.

When the Rangers were rolling, their effort was unquestioned. There were a few times when it most certainly could be questioned.

They actually overachieved given their age, the many doses of adversity — all together now — the DeAngelo saga, Panarin’s leave of absence, half a season of a COVID-19-affected Zibanejad, or non-Zibanejad, a third of a season, or more, of mediocre goaltending, and the virus that took down most of the coaching staff in midseason, not to mention the recent injuries to Trouba, Kreider, Panarin, Lindgren, Kakko, Smith (and Brett Howden and Julien Gauthier). Only three Rangers were able to play in every game in a 56-game season.

The Tom Wilson incident was an indictment on the roster makeup, perhaps the Rangers counting on the incompetent NHL Department of Player Safety to protect them, but the response, to me at least, was eye-popping.

Quinn was hired to bring along all these 23-and-unders, to help plant the tree. With few exceptions, they have blossomed or at least started to blossom. The full shade is still likely a year or more away (which probably won’t make the owner happy next season).

Will Quinn get to sit in that shade? Gorton sure didn’t. And that, to me, is loco.


Thoughts

1. One last thing about the Rangers’ statement about George Parros, the head of the NHL’s Department of Player Safety. It was on Twitter before Davidson or Gorton even knew about it. So there’s that.

2. All I know is I’m exhausted because of what went on since Monday, just wiped the hell out, and I spent most of it in a chair. I can only imagine how the athletes and coaches feel. The drama and the injury list (Justin Richards became the seventh Ranger to make his NHL debut this season) and all they’ve endured made this closing victory very sweet.

“It means more than you would think right now, especially the way it’s been going, the whole season but especially the last 10 days,” Zibanejad said after scoring his 200th career goal, his team-leading 24th of the season, and closing with 50 points despite his start. “Ten days that’s been kind of crazy, and with the guys that aren’t here right now, that can’t play, and the way we battled through it and get the win, that was good. … We got the win and got to finish the season in a somewhat nice way.

“I think it can definitely carry over. We showed a lot this week with everything that’s been going on and the way we responded and the way we played today, as well, I think just caps this week off. I’m really proud of the guys and I’m really, really happy that I’m part of this team.”

3. Quinn was asked if he felt drained and in need of a break. “Do I ever,” he smiled.

Quinn said he spoke to Strome earlier in the day about “how these last 10 days have felt so bad, just the way things have gone and all that’s gone on within our organization. You kind of forget that you want to judge your season on the totality of it, and to be in the hunt up to 10 days ago, which seems like 10 years ago … and losing the way we have lately, and what’s gone on with the Wilson incident and obviously Jeff and JD’s situations, it’s been difficult. But it was great to finish the way we did. It was exciting to get Chris his first victory as a general manager. There’s so much that’s gone on and that might get lost in all of this, that Chris has an opportunity to be the general manager and president here, which is a great opportunity for him. I know all of us and our players were very happy that we were able to get him his first win as a general manager.”

4. Sunday the offseason begins, too early, for the fourth year in a row.

“Listen, you want to go out on a winning note because you’re going to carry whatever happens today into the summer,” Quinn said. “I thought our guys did a hell of a job today. We’ve shown a lot of characteristics that you’re going to need moving forward. Obviously, the game against the Caps spoke an awful lot about the players we have here and how they want to play for each other, and taking a step forward as a team, and I thought we did that as well today as an organization. These are things we can carry over through the summer and into next fall.

“I knew they had all these things in them, and we had an opportunity to show it, and we certainly did. And as we continue to grow as an organization, these characteristics and the traits we showed over the last week are going to bode well for us moving forward.”

5. The Rangers, late in the first, got another one of those 1:40 power plays, and I say that because they almost always lose the faceoff and have to go back and get the puck behind their net. Buchnevich, back from his one-game suspension, had the puck 10 feet from the net and instead of shooting it, passed it to Zibanejad 25 feet from the net, and it went off Zibanejad’s stick.

6. Key-note: Mid-second, the Rangers finally got a lead. Filip Chytil won a draw in the O-zone and K’Andre Miller sent a long wrist shot through Morgan Barron’s screen and past Tuukka Rask. 1-0. Richards, in his NHL debut, got his first NHL assist. Moments later he nearly got his first NHL goal, too.

7. David Pastrnak’s shot nicked Miller’s stick on its way past Keith Kinkaid, getting his first start since March 28 as kind of a reward, but it clanged the crossbar.

8. Late in the second, a long Charlie McAvoy shot sailed wide and Kinkaid did a big stretch for it but missed. The puck caromed off the back wall right to Nick Ritchie, who buried it before Kinkaid could get all the way across, breaking his 132-minute shutout streak against Boston. 1-1. Kinkaid looked as if he pulled something on the play.

9. Taylor Hall, the way he’s playing now for the Bruins, should be embarrassed for the way he mailed in three quarters of the season for Buffalo.

10. My Great Aunt Tillie Could Have Scored: Just 21 seconds into the third, oof-fa. Kinkaid mishandled the puck, then Buchnevich corralled it and blindly threw it, on his backhand, toward the front of the net. To Brad Marchand, of all people, who whipped it to a wide-open Pastrnak. 2-1. Just brutal. The 200th and easiest goal of his career. Great Aunt Tillie didn’t get a lot of these this season compared with past seasons.

11. Zibane-jectory: Rask robbed Buchnevich twice in the following minutes and Blackwell ripped one off the crossbar. The Rangers went tic-tac-toe, Strome to Buchnevich to Zibanejad, for his team-leading 23rd goal of the season. Despite that nightmare first half. 2-2.

12. Laf-Track: It didn’t take long (2:03) for Zibanejad to carry into the Boston zone, get it to Buchnevich. He found Anthony Bitetto, who set up Lafrenière driving to the net for a really neat drag and backhander under the crossbar. 3-2. Before he was drafted, people compared Lafrenière’s style with Sidney Crosby’s. I think Crosby has the best backhander in the league, and Lafrenière’s is pretty outstanding, too. A few minutes later, Lafrenière stole the puck and set up Buchnevich two-on-one and Rask made a terrific save.

13. Shortly after the goal, Kinkaid was forced to do another split and again looked to have pulled something. Trainer Jim Ramsay trotted onto the ice with Igor Shesterkin coming in from the bullpen.

14. Constant Krav-ing: Mid-third, Strome won a faceoff, Zac Jones took the puck deep and put it behind the net for Strome, who threw it to the slot for a Kravtsov one-timer past Rask. 4-2. His second of his season/career.

15. Marchand knocked a puck out of midair — and the Rangers thought it was with a high stick — then finished a give-and-go with David Krejci. 4-3. That’s not reviewable. But a skate a fraction of an inch offside is reviewable.

Late third, Buchnevich stole a Boston pass off the glass and quickly set up Zibenejad in the slot for his 24th. 5-3. The 200th goal of his career. Lafrenière, the teen, had the wherewithal to go get the puck for him.

16. But … Patrice Bergeron redirected one past Shesterkin, who nevertheless cherry-picked a win allowing two goals on nine shots. 5-4.

17. Brendan Smith (lower-body injury) may have played his last game as a Ranger on Thursday. If he did, he went out proudly. To be very much applauded.

18. We’re going to have a lot to say in the coming days and weeks, plus a readers’ mailbag, so please stay tuned. Also, as always, I want to thank everybody who read, reacted and interacted with our coverage all season. It is always much appreciated.

My Three Rangers Stars:
1. Pavel Buchnevich
2. Mika Zibanejad
3. Keith Kinkaid

How can this be? People here are 100% certain he’s lost the room and the big guys don’t respect him and quit on him.

 

[CLW]

“We have a really good talented players at different levels of their careers, different ages, different contract status some lottery picks here and there, some high picks but I think we have to get to a place where when you step over the boards you know exactly what your role is, exactly what you are doing that night and why you are doing it and I think this summer we’ll go along way to defining that”. Rangers G.M. Chis Drury on 05/08/2021.
That could be a damming statement on this coaching staff.
Who’s job is it to may sure each player knows what his role is and who’s responsible if they don’t.
My answer would be the coaching staff.
Full disclosure: I have never been involved in organized sports above Babe Ruth league, so this is a layman’s response.

I find that quote by Drury interesting too. I agree it falls on coaching, but DC has been complaining that players don't do as told. It will be interesting to see if the whip lashes the coach, the players or both.

Overall the team tried to ride too many horses this season. Make the playoffs with an unbalanced team to placate an impatient owner, give the vets a free reign, develop the kids, unhappy coach, along with all kinds of lowkey unrest behind the scenes.