The Rangers finalized their offseason, at least appeared to finalize their offseason, with the 1 year Ryan Lindgren contract. JL spoke on what this means for the Rangers in the upcoming season, and while this may have overlapping thoughts, there are some pieces that JL did not cover on Live From the Blue Seats that I felt necessary to dive into.
1. To start the offseason, I was very adamant that the Rangers can’t bring back both Lindgren and Jacob Trouba in significant roles and still expect to get past the Eastern Conference Final. Both turn into pumpkins with the puck on their stick. At the time, it made more logical sense that Lindgren would be dangled, as Trouba’s contract would probably be a role.
Aside: In all fairness, I thought Trouba’s $8 million would be the limiting factor, not his no-trade clause. Swing and a miss.
Yet here we are, with both Lindgren and Trouba returning next season. At least we are expecting Trouba’s role to be lessened by playing on the third pair. Given how often he’s been playing through injuries, perhaps it’s time to take him off the penalty kill as well.
2. The reason why I am still adamant that the Rangers won’t go further than the Eastern Conference Final with both Lindgren and Trouba in key roles is puck movement. The Rangers didn’t lose to Florida because of toughness, or Matt Tkachuk, or Mika Zibanejad, or whatever singular reason you may have focused on. They lost because they couldn’t get out of their own zone.
Part of that is on the forwards, specifically the centers, to stay low and give the defense an outlet. It’s where the Rangers really missed Filip Chytil last season. We must acknowledge this.
However most of this is on the overall ability of the blue liners to effectively move the puck. Adam Fox notwithstanding, only K’Andre Miller had that skill set, and he was unfortunately covering for Trouba most of the time.
Zac Jones over Erik Gustafsson helps a ton here, but he’s still a relative unknown in Peter Laviolette’s system.
3. As for the Ryan Lindgren contract itself, the hope with Lindgren is his rough season last year was a blip, and he returns to form for this coming season. The other scenario is he’s a bad fit for Peter Laviolette’s 2-1-2/1-3-1 forecheck, and he has another rough season. His injury history doesn’t quite help either.
These are likely the two main reasons why the Rangers were adamant about term for Lindgren. Injuries and his play style are certainly well known, and we all have PTSD from the Dan Girardi and Marc Staal contracts. Though to be fair, Lindgren is still 26 years old. Still, best to avoid a long term Ryan Lindgren contract, and they did.
4. I would not be surprised, given the short term Ryan Lindgren contract, to see him traded midseason if a bigger need arises. Center depth is the big concern, and if the Rangers lose just one top-nine center, they don’t have the depth to cover it. Lindgren would be their best piece to dangle, even if a pending UFA, for an impact player.
The Rangers would be robbing Peter to pay Paul in this scenario, which isn’t much fun. In this hypothetical, Chad Ruhwedel slides into the lineup–we’ve seen both Miller-Fox and Jones-Schneider be successful in small doses–on the third pair with Trouba. In theory, Ruhwedel-Trouba would be fine given Ruhwedel’s play style. In theory.
5. It does appear the Rangers don’t want to commit to Lindgren on anything long term. Personally, I think this is the right move. We all love him, but the Ryan Lindgren contract isn’t about how we feel about him on the ice. It’s about durability and getting value in a hard cap world. Lindgren’s $4.5 million salary may not seem like much, and if he plays all 82 games at an improved level from last year, it’s probably worth it.
But we all know Lindgren, despite a high number of games played, is never fully healthy. He’s been injured at critical times the last two seasons. His play style doesn’t allow him to be fully healthy. Again, that’s fine! But it comes with risk. The one year Ryan Lindgren contract is about mitigating that risk. Avoiding a long term deal mitigates that risk.
6. There’s a full season of hockey to be played, and the roster on opening night won’t be the roster in April, May, and hopefully June.
Recent Comments