Once the Rangers completed their game Tuesday against the Panthers, their final contest before a two-week break, head coach Gerard Gallant has plans to reassess his lineup.
The lines and defensive pairs have changed game to game in recent weeks, due to a series of injuries, players coming in and out of COVID-19 protocol and a rotation of defensemen to discover the most effective bottom duo. But with a couple of lineup staples expected to be fully healthy by the time the Rangers return to play on Feb. 15 against the Bruins, Gallant is likely waiting until the hiatus to make some lineup decisions with a full roster.
“We’ve got 14 days or something like that to get things back on track,” Gallant said following Monday’s practice at MSG Training Center. “Put your lines together, put your D pairs together and assess what the first half of the season was like and what we’ve got to get better at. And there’s definitely some things. I like our record, but we’ve got to get better at some things.”
Between the slow-moving coronavirus outbreak during their season-long five-game road trip in mid-January and the recent slew of injuries, the Rangers’ lack of depth, in the top-six forward group in particular, has been evident.
Gerard Gallant is planning to shuffle the Rangers’ lines during the team’s All-Star break. Corey Sipkin
It’s an area which Rangers president and general manager Chris Drury will likely look to address leading up to the March 21 trade deadline.
The bottom six has recently featured fourth-liners and players who would normally be with the team’s AHL affiliate in Hartford. Gallant has not only been forced to rearrange his lines on a game-to-game basis, but also has often jumbled them up period-to-period.
“I’ve gone back and forth way too much,” Gallant said. “And it’s not because that’s what I want to do. It’s because sometimes that’s what you have to do. I look over there and I’m saying, ‘Who’s going to best fit there tonight?’
“I wish I could just roll my four lines all year long, but with COVID and everything else going on and injuries right now, you try different people in different spots.”
With Filip Chytil and Kaapo Kakko expected to fully recover from their injuries by the end of the All-Star break, Gallant will have more lineup decisions to make when the Rangers return. Chytil skated in the middle of Alexis Lafreniere and Julien Gauthier during practice on Monday, but was held out for precautionary reasons against the Panthers.
It’ll be interesting to see what Gallant opts to do with Lafreniere, who skated on the top line with Mika Zibanejad and Chris Kreider recently against the Wild and Kraken. The problem with putting Lafreniere on the top line is that either he or Kreider must skate on his off-side.
“Of course,” Lafreniere said when asked if he believes he can make it work on the right wing. “It’s a little change, but it’s nothing crazy. I think I can adjust. I’m good enough to adjust and play on my right side.”
Lafreniere noted that the biggest challenge of skating on his off-side is positioning when coming back into the defensive zone and on breakouts. After snapping a nine-game point drought by scoring in the 3-2 win Sunday over Seattle, Lafreniere couldn’t help but admit how much he likes playing on the top unit, but the former first-overall pick said he’d line up anywhere he was asked to.
“The more games you play, the better you become,” Lafreniere said. “With Kreids, it’s nice. He’s so good. He can play right, he can play left, so it was easier for me to have a guy like that who can cover my mistakes a little bit.”
