On Friday night in California, the New York Rangers went head-to-head with former Rangers captain Jacob Trouba for the first time since they traded him to the Anaheim Ducks on Dec. 6. And Trouba’s Ducks dealt the Blueshirts a serious blow to their Stanley Cup playoff aspirations by beating them 5-4 in overtime, underscoring a season-long issue for the Rangers: their defense.
Trouba isn’t an advanced analytics darling, but on a Ducks team that needs veteran experience, he’s averaging 20:49 of ice time per game, up slightly from the 20 he averaged for the Rangers in the 24 games he played for them before he accepted a deal to Anaheim. Yet, before and since the trade, the Rangers have largely been unable to stop opponents’ offense, averaging three goals-against per game – the 17th-best mark in the league in that category.
When the Rangers lose, they lose by a lot. Indeed, in 13 of their 28 losses since trading Trouba, the Rangers have allowed five goals or more. And they’ve gone 22-22-6 since the Trouba deal. For a team that has an elite goaltender in Igor Shesterkin – even if he has struggled at times this season – that’s simply unacceptable. And given that the Rangers are not locked to make the post-season this year, you can make the argument that their sub-par defense is the key reason for it.
Now, we’re not here to tell you that the Rangers would have been a strong shutdown squad if Trouba had stayed in Manhattan. But look at their defense corps today, and you’ll see a flawed group that can’t contain the opposition’s scorers.
Top blueliner Adam Fox has been decent with 56 points and a plus-8 plus-minus total, but K’Andre Miller is a minus-6, and Will Borgen – a decent pickup in the deal that sent Kaapo Kakko to Seattle – is only a plus-6. Plus-minus isn’t a perfect stat by any means, but it’s still an indicator of a team’s all-around play, and the Rangers’ struggles in that metric says a lot about where they are in the standings today.
In making the Trouba trade, the Rangers obviously wanted to get out from under Trouba’s annual $8-million salary. But it’s not as if they’ve used that cap space to improve defensively. Instead, it’s been more of the same, time and again, and Shesterkin hasn’t been able to steal games the way he has in previous seasons. And the Rangers’ offense – currently ranked 13th in the league at an average of 3.01 goals-for per-game – also hasn’t been able to bail out the defense.
You can point out that Trouba hasn’t been especially effective defensively since joining the Ducks, and that’s accurate, as Anaheim presently is 21st in the league with an average of 3.13 goals-against per game. But tellingly, the Ducks have been a better team than the Rangers since the Trouba trade, going 22-21-5 since Dec. 6. And Anaheim has allowed five goals or more in 10 of those 26 losses – again, not anything to write home about, but slightly better than the defensive efforts of the Blueshirts.
With their team’s struggles, Rangers fans are right to question the moves GM Chris Drury has made this season. Many Rangers fans were ready to part ways with Trouba well before the deal was consummated, but they can’t deny that trading their former captain hasn’t solved much of anything.
And if the Rangers do miss out on the playoffs this year, their suspect play in their own zone will be the chief culprit for their demise.
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