TARRYTOWN, N.Y. — For all the talk ahead of this New York Rangers– Carolina Hurricanes series about Carolina’s well-worn, successful style and why it made the Hurricanes favorites in this series, there wasn’t much talk about what the Rangers do well game-in and game-out.
Do the Presidents’ Trophy winners even have a style?
“Yeah, sure,” Barclay Goodrow said. “I think every team has a style that they play and I think every team believes in their style that they play. Whether we’re playing Carolina or Washington, whoever it is, how they play doesn’t change the style that we believe in and that we’ve been playing all year to make it to this point.”
Even if that style is hard to define or quantify in data modeling, it’s working. Sunday’s Game 1 was another example of that. The Rangers won the special-teams battle, going 2-for-2 on the power play and 5-for-5 on the penalty kill. Igor Shesterkin was sharp and got some luck, with the Canes hitting three posts. And, even though all seven goals came off what Clear Sight Hockey considered high-danger chances, Artemi Panarin’s eventual winner to make it 4-2 with 11:39 to play was a shot that Carolina goalie Frederik Andersen probably should have stopped.
Artemi Panarin restores the Rangers’ two-goal lead! 🗽 pic.twitter.com/fPOO8qMpUs
— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) May 5, 2024
Add it all up and it doesn’t look like a repeatable, winning formula. The Rangers didn’t necessarily impress in all phases of the game against the Caps, but it was still a sweep. And the Hurricanes did get to their style — aggressiveness in all three zones, moving into the offensive zone with speed and funneling pucks down low to capitalize off scrambles — in the third period well enough to throw a decent scare into the Rangers.
But it was another win. And another night when the opponent may have felt it deserved better. Clear Sight had the Canes with 10 high-danger chances in Game 1, six of those in the third period when they were down two goals for the majority of it. The Rangers had four high-danger chances — and scored on all four. The Canes won the expected-goals battle, 4.2-2.0; that’s what makes them favorites over a series.
Over the last six years under Rod Brind’Amour, the Canes have smartly identified prospects, trade targets and free agents who fit the mold. Vincent Trocheck was one of those players, acquired in a surprising move at the 2019-20 trade deadline from the Panthers. He knows how well his old team can operate its system.
“The way they play is hard to play against, it’s hard to argue against that,” Trocheck said. “You see they’re betting favorites, they’re the analytics darlings … We’re the Presidents’ Trophy-winners, 114 points. They’ve been right there with us all year.”
The Rangers played pretty even with the Canes at five-on-five for the first 40 minutes and maintained their own aggressive style up the ice to disrupt Carolina’s speed out of the Hurricanes end. The Rangers also blocked 28 shots, the third-most for the Rangers in a game this season. Discipline and energy are keys to warding off the Hurricanes, who try to engage and win man-on-man battles everywhere.
So if you can, as Trocheck put it, “frustrate them, get in their face up the ice,” you take away a big part of Carolina’s style. The knock on the Hurricanes, who have won a playoff series six years running but have yet to make it to a Final under Brind’Amour, is this: Once you can take away some of that signature style, are the Hurricanes able to adjust? They’ve lost more than a few second- and third-round playoff games like Game 1, where they have the numbers on their side but not the result.
The Rangers likely won’t have such a glaring disparity on special teams again this series — converting twice while needing just 23 total seconds of power-play time is not something to rely on against a Canes team that had the best penalty kill in the league this season. But it is a weapon that favors the high-end Rangers on their top unit and it’s not something that makes its way into many data models.
“It’s definitely a strength — you want it to be a strength,” Adam Fox said. “You look at every series and if you win the special teams battle I think you have a pretty good chance at winning your series. I think that’s just how it goes — it’s a part of the game. We’re not doubting our five-on-five ability, we’re able to play that too, but if you’re going to get opportunities on the man-advantage or vice versa when you have to kill an opportunity for them — I think having confidence in that is a big part of it as well.”
We know all about the Hurricanes’ style. We’ve seen the Rangers’ style, even if we can’t really sum it up with a chart or a video clip.
“Competition, I’d say,” Chris Kreider said. “It starts with everything we do in practice, everything we do is blue vs. white. That just kind of raises our tempo, we’re competitive players and it’s fun to compete. We’ve been doing it all year. That goes into the games with finding ways to win, finding ways to accomplish the objective. And it takes everyone to do that.”
(Photo: Jared Silber / NHLI via Getty Images)
