With the offseason mostly done, only Dylan Garand remains unsigned, we are at the lull of the summer where teams go on vacation and little news becomes available and roster are mostly set. The Rangers reset the core and made had a solid offseason, though the roster is far from perfect. The questions about Mika Zibanejad are valid, just as valid as questioning the Rangers defense depth. Outside of Vlad Gavrikov-Adam Fox, the defense is a mixed bag and certainly not a strength on paper. Yet.
Rangers top pair is one of the best
The hate Adam Fox received this offseason has been odd to day the least. He’s a consistent top-three defenseman in the NHL. Last year was rough for everyone, and singling out Fox of all players wasn’t the best use of time and space on Al Gore’s interwebs. Will ran through his defense of Fox, and I’m not going to re-hash it.
Fox will get the best defense partner he’s ever had in his career in Vlad Gavrikov. The easy analysis is that Fox is the offensive defenseman and Gavrikov the defensive defenseman, but I think that sells both of them short. Offensively, Gavrikov seems to have a decent ability to get pucks from the point through to the net, as noted by his rebounds created and deflection assists. He’s also no slouch in creating offense on the zone entry (entries w/chances).
Fox gets a lot of hate defensively, but it’s pretty unwarranted. No one is perfect, and Fox has shows legitimate elite talent in zone defense retrievals and getting the puck out of the zone. That’s defense too! It’s not traditional defense, like with Gavrikov, who excels in denying zone entries and forcing the play to his side of the ice. Gavrikov’s ability to deny entries should help the Rangers create chances off the rush, something they lacked last season.
Rangers defense depth is lacking otherwise
Outside of the bonafide top pair, the Rangers defense depth is certainly questionable at best. Braden Schneider leads the rest of the Rangers defense depth, and hopefully his surgically repaired shoulder means he takes significant strides. He’s shown flashes that he can be a second pair defenseman, but hasn’t truly taken control of the 2RD role.
Complicating matters with Schneider is Will Borgen, who signed a five year, $20.5 million contract, is also projected to be the Rangers 2RD. Newly acquired Scott Morrow, who is likely penciled into an NHL spot as of this writing, is also a RHD. On the left side, the Rangers have just Carson Soucy and Urho Vaakanainen. Not exactly a murderer’s row of LHD right now.
The good news is Schneider can play LD and it looks like that’s the plan, alleviating the Rangers defense depth concerns. That means the Rangers could have Schneider-Borgen as a second pair, giving us an extended look at a healthy Schneider. Though it appears this scenario will only play out if Morrow breaks camp with the Rangers.
The bad news is outside of Fox and potentially Morrow, the Rangers defense depth doesn’t include any consistent puck movers. None of Soucy, Borgen, or Vaakanainen have been consistent puck movers throughout their careers, and all three were brutal with this last season. There are a lot of question marks here.
The Mike Sullivan factor
The consistent message this offseason has been the Mike Sullivan factor. It’s tough to quantify how his simpler systems will impact the Rangers defense depth. Sully won a Cup in Pittsburgh with Justin Schultz as his top defender, so there’s certainly cause for optimism with what he can do with this group.
If our message has been wait and see what Sully can do, then it would be hypocritical for us to say the Rangers defense depth needs to be retooled already. That’s not entirely fair to the current guys who, for all intents and purposes, joined the Rangers when they were a train wreck last season. They all deserve the same treatment we are giving the forwards. Let’s see if they rebound.
Something that is flying under the radar: The Rangers are the envy of the NHL with potentially 4 right handed defensemen in the lineup. Many teams, like Dallas, would love for the Rangers to make one of their RHD’s available via trade. If the Rangers defense depth needs improvement, it will likely need to come on the left side. It makes you wonder which RHD might be dangled to address this, if necessary.
The Rangers defense depth is certainly a work in progress. Chris Drury has added Soucy, Borgen, Morrow, and Gavrikov to address this desperate need for a retool. Now it’s up to Sully to mold them into something more than the sum of their parts. That requires patience through the first month of the season as they learn a new system.
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