NHL: New York Rangers severely limited by their system-first approach

In crunch time, when other teams play frantic hockey – that is when the Rangers run into trouble, writes Rob McKenzie.

New York Rangers player Kevin Hayes shown during his team's game against the Detroit Red Wings earlier this week. Carlos Osorio / AP / March 12, 2016

Like the team he coaches, Alain Vigneault gives up little. Whether his New York Rangers win or lose, his post-game comments tend to repel probing rather than invite it.

He says nonsense like, “You need to bring your A-game to the table, and I think our group understands that”. And, “We came into a tough building and got a point. We’ll take the point and move on”. Then there was “If I look at our process tonight, it wasn’t our best game ... But we did find a way to win”.

He does not explain the process. Maybe no one asks.

But watching the Rangers recently their play has certain consistent elements.

Together they add up to a team that adhere to a system as strictly as any other in the NHL (in the same boat: Nashville Predators). These guys are not free-wheelers.

If they were a football team, they would be a Jose Mourinho squad.

Defence is where it all begins for the Rangers. They have an all-world goalie in Henrik Lundqvist and they let him do his job. The defencemen get a jump on opposing forwards to keep them away from the crease, where they could block Lundqvist’s line of vision. As long as he sees the puck, he stops it.

The Rangers’ defenders also seem to concede the boards to their opponents more than most teams. Instead they hold their positions in the middle of the ice.

They are very patient and let you come at them.

“They’re a team that can shut it down so well and so much, and be so patient,” Pittsburgh Penguins goalie Marc-Andre Fleury said. “It gets frustrating, but we kept coming at them.”

All this stuff is easier said than done. It requires discipline and communication.

If an opponent is circling with the puck in the offensive zone, one Ranger waves at another to go after the puckhandler. Then the player who waved retreats into a three-man wall in the middle of the defensive zone.

Meanwhile, the fifth Ranger is behind the wall and guarding Lundqvist’s crib.

The Rangers are opportunistic and will often derive their offence from defence. This is how they got the first goal in Thursday’s loss to the Los Angeles Kings. They forced a turnover in their own end and immediately three players broke forward.

With only one opponent back on defence, JT Miller was able to rifle it home.

It is essential to the Rangers’ formula that they have a core of players who have been with the team a long time so that their many minds can better become one. Five men have been Blueshirts since at least 2010: Marc Staal, Ryan McDonagh, Dan Girardi, Derek Stepan and Lundqvist, the latter of who dates to 2005.

And yet there are doubts about these Rangers, the same ones that arise around system-first teams in any sport – when the play-offs start, can a disciplined team raise their game in the same way as a more creative team?

The Rangers have won six play-off series in the past three seasons and are entitled to scoff at doubters. But here is a worrying statistic – 15 times this season they have given up a game-tying or game-winning goal in the final five minutes of regulation.

That is the most of any team in the league.

In crunch time, when other teams play frantic hockey – that is when the Rangers run into trouble.

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