Rangers Recap: The Wes Mess

The New York Rangers and Utah Hockey Club put together a clinic of early season hockey: High flying offense, odd-man rushes, misconnections on pass attempts, and bad goals. The Rangers got a point in the game, losing in overtime. What partially makes this overtime loss sting the most is that the game was very winnable. There were some egregious calls on the ice, but at the end of the day, they still allowed 6 goals against.

It’s early, only being the second game of the season, so I expect for these kinds of performances to be few and far between when we get into the thick of the season. We do need to have a discussion though on a couple of players who deserve some criticism–even this early into the season.

What has happened to Mika Zibanejad? Did the Monstars steal his talent? This man is not the player the Rangers signed to an 8 year $68 million contract. We are in year 3 of the deal, and he has gotten progressively worse each and every season under this contract.

After his disappearing act in the conference finals, there was hope that once the games started up again, he’d be back to producing for the team. Instead he was a -4, had one measly shot on goal on the power play, and completely blew his assignment on the overtime winner by Clayton Keller. You expect way better from a 31 year old veteran who is supposed to be a top-six center. The team’s success depends on contributions from everyone up and down the lineup.

I alluded to it before, but I could go on an entire soliloquy about how the officiating was one of the worst officiated games we’ve seen. To recap Wes McCauley’s work, he missed an obvious trip on Adam Fox seconds after Sam praised him as a good man on the broadcast, waived off a goal for Matt Rempe being in the blue paint (which hasn’t been a penalty for 24 years), called Will Cuylle for goaltender interference because Mikhail Sergachev and him were battling for positioning getting to a puck, and missed 5 players on the ice for Utah in the OT period.

This man is not fit to officiate in the National Hockey League. He’s not even fit to coach a youth hockey game. How he continues to be allowed to work is beyond me. You could argue that the officiating gifted Utah 2-3 goals. Still no excuse for allowing six, mind you.

It’s not all bad, though. The Rangers third line of Will Cuylle, Filip Chytil, and Kaapo Kakko has been exciting to watch. This trio is going to be a coach’s nightmare when it comes to matchups as the season progresses. Both Chytil and Kakko possess a new found confidence with the puck, something both sorely needed. They are going to be a matchup nightmare and give the Rangers a strong tertiary scoring option, something this team lacked in the playoffs last year.

Burn the tape. Learn from the defensive miscues. Rebound against a very pedestrian Red Wings team Monday.