Will Borgen, the “prize” of the Kaapo Kakko trade, was a defenseman Chris Drury had his eyes on for a while. After finally landing his man, Borgen stepped right into a 2RD role alongside K’Andre Miller and actually looked pretty good initially. He parlayed that into a 5 year contract extension, which came with sticker shock as a bit of an overpay. Contract and trade return aside, Borgen was viewed as a 2RD by both Drury and Peter Laviolette, which is interesting given how highly they think of Braden Schneider.
In Will Borgen’s 51 games as the 2RD, he put up a line of 4-9-13 with no powerplay time and averaging 16:39 TOI per game. Like almost every other Rangers defenseman not named Adam Fox, Borgen’s possession stats are pretty rough, though at least he has a bit of an excuse as he was miscast as a shutdown defenseman, which he is clearly not. It appears many issues on the Rangers blue line stem from a decision made by Gerard Gallant years ago that Miller and Jacob Trouba should be a shutdown pair. That carried over to Borgen, which doesn’t fit his skill set.
The biggest challenge Mike Sullivan will have is finding the right role for Will Borgen. He’s clearly not meant to be a shutdown defender. None of his microstats or possession numbers show it’s his strength. He’s a swift skater that can make a decent pass in the offensive zone. That probably means he’s best suited as a 3RD, but that depends how both Braden Schneider and Scott Morrow look.
Aside: Is it just me, or do the defense pairs outside Gavrikov-Fox look a bit rough?
Grading the defensemen, especially the new ones, is a tough task. On one hand, Borgen’s numbers were not good and outside of that initial boost when he arrived, he didn’t look that good either. On the other hand, how much of this was system related? How much was because the locker room was a disaster? How much was because the team itself was underachieving? It’s tough to put a grade to an individual when the entire team stunk.
It’s even tougher to put a grade to Borgen given K’Andre Miller’s horrific turnovers last season.
Amazing how one play per game can change the entire analysis and viewpoints of a player, but here we are. Borgen didn’t cause the turnovers, but he was on the ice when they wound up in the back of his net seemingly once per game. We need to grade him on his own performance, but how do we grade him when his performance was clearly impacted by a number of factors outside his control?
In the end, I think playing it safe with Will Borgen’s grade is the best approach. He wasn’t overly productive in Seattle either, so it’s not like he got to the Rangers and all of a sudden looked horrible. There’s hope that under Sully he can rebound after a couple rough seasons, but that seems to be more of a stretch now.
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