Special teams slump has Rangers in trouble in Eastern Conference Final

The New York Rangers find themselves in unfamiliar territory, and not simply because they were outplayed in Games 3 and 4 of the Eastern Conference Final. Just as alarmingly, they find themselves wrong side of the special teams battle with the Florida Panthers. 

Before the series, if you had heard that the Rangers and Panthers would be tied at 2-2, but that the Rangers had only scored one goal on the power play on 11 attempts, you’d be wondering how that would be possible. Especially after finding out that the Panthers would have converted on five of their 15 attempts. 

“Our penalty kill has been the backbone of our in the playoffs. We always talk about special teams — it’s sometimes timing,” said Rangers defenseman Adam Fox. “You want to be able to get that kill in overtime and feed off of that, but they’re a good team. They have a good power play too and credit to them — they were able to capitalize on it.”

The kill in overtime in Game 4 that Fox alluded to was a tough penalty for his team to take in that position. Blake Wheeler, who was playing his first game since returning from an injury he sustained on Feb. 15, was put in a tough position off of an untimely pass by Mika Zibanejad. Let’s face facts: Wheeler may not be the quickest of skaters on the Rangers roster, but anyone else in that spot would have most likely come out with the same result. If anything, Wheeler made the right play doing whatever he could to make sure that Aleksander Barkov, one of the Panthers’ most dangerous players, didn’t get a clean shot on Igor Shesterkin on a breakaway. 

It was very unlucky for Wheeler.

“It was a tough spot for him to be in. There was a lot of heat on him — a lot of pressure”, said Rangers coach Peter Laviolette. “It bounces back the other way, the guys were chasing it the best they could.”

Vincent Trocheck opened Game 4 by scoring on the man advantage, which was the Rangers’ first goal on the power play in their nine attempts at the time in this series. Those five players have come up huge at every point of the season and with that goal coming at the 8:51 mark of the opening period, it felt like the Rangers were going to roll.

“Special teams has been a positive for us all of the playoffs, one game isn’t going to ruin our confidence,” Fox said. “It was good to get that power-play goal. We’ve had some looks, but to capitalize is always a little bit of confidence boost.”

The first period was about as strong of 20 minutes as the Rangers could have asked for; they were on their toes playing aggressively and not allowing the Panthers to dictate the pace.

Zibanejad had a prime chance to put them up 2-0 in the first period but rang it off the crossbar. Who knows how that game could have gone had that puck gone in?

In an attempt to spin-zone this into a positive, the Rangers find themselves in a 2-2 series with home ice and their biggest weapon (the power play) has yet to find a way to get going. Of course, taking a commanding 3-1 lead going home would have been ideal, but a best of three with two games at Madison Square Garden is still a good position to be in. 

“Sometimes it’s the way you take one on the road — when you get that first one you want to be able to come back home with a 3-1 lead,” Fox said. “If you say before the trip you’re going to come back and split I think you’d be happy with that. We wanted to get that third one, but we just need to come back on home ice and respond.”

Now to totally reverse that positive spin zone: typically you hear players and coaches say that the playoffs are a one-day-at-a-time mentality and that nothing that happened previously matters once the puck drops for the next game. That said, something apparent that is carrying over is the Rangers’ struggles in the special teams department, which nobody is accustomed to seeing or hearing. 

The Florida Panthers have tallied five power-play goals in the last three games, Sam Reinhart has three of those goals himself. The Rangers expected this to be a close series and know they need to get their man advantage going, but they’re sticking with that day-to-day mentality. 

“Obviously you want to be up 3-1,” said Rangers captain Jacob Trouba. “You can’t look back and think ‘what ifs’. You have to turn the page pretty quick and start focusing on the next one — that’s just how the playoffs go.”

New York has shown at times that they can be in control. Tonight their first period was the brand of hockey that we have seen for the majority of this year. The team is aware of that and knows they can get back to playing that way, but it’s not going to help to dwell on the negatives from Game 4. 

“Every game is it’s own identity, I’m not a big believer in momentum swinging from game to game,” Trouba said. We’ll be back at home — we’ve got a 3-game series now.”

The Panthers’ power play is clicking at 33.3% in the series, the Rangers are at 9.1%. 

If the Rangers can figure out their power play and stay more disciplined at home, these next few games will go their way. If not, their season could end earlier than they’d like. They’ve been a dominant special teams group all year, it’s been their bread and butter. They need it now more than ever. 

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