Coming off a disappointing playoff series against the Pittsburgh Penguins in 2016, the Rangers kept their heads held high this past season. The Rangers dominated their way into April achieving a noticeable record of 48-28-6and qualifying for the playoffs for the 10th time in the past 11 seasons. The Rangers added some key players to the team in the offseason that would help them propel themselves to another playoff berth.
During the offseason, the Rangers made one small trade and one bigger trade that worked out to their advantage. On June 25th, they traded a fourth round pick to the Colorado Avalanche for defensemen Nick Holden, who would go on to be a reliable asset. The second trade occurred on July 18th 2016 when the Rangers sent Derrick Brassard and a 7th-round pick in 2018 to the Ottawa Senators for Mika Zibanejad and a 2nd’round pick in 2018. In free agency, their biggest signings were Michael Grabner from the Toronto Maple Leafs who signed for 2 years, $3.3 million dollars and the Rangers were the winners of the Jimmy Vesey sweepstakes, signing the college prospect to a 2 year deal worth $7.55 million. After a disappointing season in Toronto, Grabner, one of the fastest skaters in the NHL would excel in New York, scoring 27 goals. Vesey scored an impressive 16 goals in his first season.
The Rangers had a great year and each month their play continually improved. This was evident as some of the young players matured during the season. Players such as Kevin Hayes scored 49 points in 76 games, his career highest, while veteran Chris Kreider tallied 53 points, also a career high for him as well. Mats Zuccarello led the team with 59 points while J.T. Miller came in second in scoring with 56 points in his fourth season with the Blue Shirts. While there was no shortage of goals being scored, goal tending was another issue. This was not Henrik Lundqvist’s best season; he went 31-20-4 in 57 games with 2 shutouts, a goals against average of 2.74 and a save percentage of .910. However, backup goalie Anti Raanta impressed Coach Alain Vigneault enough at one point in November to replace Lundqvist as starting goaltender. Raanta would also become the team’s starting goaltender in March when Henrik Lundqvist went down with an injury. Raanta finished the year 16 wins, 8 losses, 2 OT losses, 4 shutouts, goals against average of 2.26 and .922 save percentage. Most likely he will not return for the Rangers with speculation of the Las Vegas Golden Knights targeting him to be one of their goal minders.
New York made it to the second round of the playoffs this year but was eliminated by 8th seed Ottawa Senators. In the first round, they played the Atlantic Division Champions, the Montreal Canadiens. The Rangers won game one (1-0) but were totally outplayed the next two games losing game two (4-3) and game three (3-1). The next three games were tight contests but the Rangers wound up winning all three to advance to the second round. The Rangers lost to the Senators in six games in a series where the Rangers dominated the Senators but the Senators always somehow found a way to win. In game two and game five, the Rangers would manage to gain the lead, fail to deliver the knock-out blow and then blow it in the third period; Ottawa would win in overtime both times.
After the playoffs were over, Ranger fans wanted changes to the team. The first change is dealing one of the defensemen, Dan Girardi. Girardi had a good season but not good enough to warrant $5.5M until 2020. While the Rangers have approximately $9 million dollars in cap space, their offense seems to be solid with 4 very strong lines with chemistry. But the Rangers are not known to be thrifty and most likely will be looking for a solid defenseman and backup goalie in the offseason if Raanta is snatched by the Knights. In the end, the Rangers should make it to the big show but the one variable as to how far they go is the goal tending play of Lundqvist. At age 35, one can only speculate how much more he has left in the tank. If he rises to the occasion then in all likelihood the Rangers would go deeper than the past few seasons.
Featured Image via Wikimedia
