Better luck next year: The New York Rangers still haven't fixed their problem
It is a common theme that is not changing.
Welcome back to Better Luck Next Year, a series that will focus on each team as they get eliminated from Stanley Cup Playoff contention and the Stanley Cup Playoffs. What went wrong, why it went wrong, what (if anything) went right, and what is next. We continue today with the next team to be officially eliminated from Stanley Cup Playoff contention: The New York Rangers.
The 2023-24 New York Rangers came close. Really close. And they were a legitimately good team that accomplished a lot. Finishing with the best record in the league over a full 82-game schedule is something to celebrate. I don’t care about the Presidents’ Trophy “curse” or how meaningless people think the award is, there is a lot to be said for finishing with a better record than 31 other teams. Reaching the Conference Finals and being one of the last four teams standing is going through an absolute grind.
But they still fell short of their goal, and part of the reason why is the same problem that has plagued them for the past few years.
They are simply not good enough at 5-on-5.
To be fair, I am honestly not sure anybody was going to beat the Florida Panthers in the Eastern Conference Final series. The Panthers started to take on the look of an absolute buzzsaw in the playoffs and I’m not sure a marginally better 5-on-5 team would have made much of a difference. That team was cooking and nobody was getting in their way.
When it comes to the Rangers, they do two things exceptionally well that help turn them into a playoff team and a serious contender.
The first is their power play. When it is clicking on all cylinders it is as dominant as any power play in the league and maybe second only to the Edmonton Oilers. It not only drove a significant portion of their offense during the regular season, it helped carry them through the first two rounds of this year’s playoffs. That was especially true in the second round against the Carolina Hurricanes where that unit simply went off.
The second is starting goalie Igor Shesterkin. Shesterkin has continued on the Rangers’ legacy of having a franchise goalie that can put the team on his back and largely mask whatever number of flaws the rest of the roster might have. I am not prepared to say that he is already better than Henrik Lundqvist was, but he is rapidly starting to close that gap and play his way into that discussion. He is a force and gives them a chance to win every night and in every series. He is a series-stealer, a season-changer, and a franchise-changer.
But my criticism of the Rangers and this current recipe is that teams like this have a ceiling. And it is usually not a Stanley Cup ceiling.
No matter how good (or great) your goalie is, they are not going to be able to single-handedly carry a team to a Stanley Cup on their own. Sometimes having a player like that is actually a curse because they do such a good job masking the team’s flaws that management never gets pressured enough into actually fixing them.
Your power play might be great, but there is also going to come a point in the playoffs where it is going to run cold, or the calls will not go your way, and it is going to come down to actually winning games at even-strength.
That is simply not an area where the Rangers excel. Until they fix that, it is hard to see them bringing a Stanley Cup back to New York no matter how good Shesterkin or the power play is.
The harsh truth Rangers fans — and more importantly, the Rangers themselves — have to accept is teams that reach the Stanley Cup Final (and the teams that ultimately beat them in the playoffs) are significantly better than them when all sides are even on the ice. And the numbers back that up.
Let’s talk about it.
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