Since the last game of the pre-season, it’s been clear what lines Head Coach Peter Laviolette would be rolling with going into the regular season. Let’s take a look at each of the line combos, who specifically has exceeded expectations, and who has left more to be desired in the New York Rangers’ first few games.
The Lines
‘KZK’ Line: Kreider – Zibanejad – Kakko
The Kreider-Zibanejad bromance seems to be alive and well this season, the duo have played together on the top line and power play for over 4 seasons dating back to the KZB line consisting of Kreider, Zibanejad, and Pavel Buchnevich. The newly vamped KZK line holds one of the highest Expected Goals For Percentage (xGF%) in the league according to HockeyStatMiner via X. Not to mention Kreider and Mika have combined for 10 points total, including 2 powerplay goals and a short-handed goal set up by a no-look backhanded pass from Mika to Kreider.
Unfortunately, these advanced stats and explosive starts for K and Z haven’t transitioned to top right-winger Kaapo Kakko. Kakko only holds 1 assist on the season, and while he still looks dominant while possessing the puck, he needs to start putting up points.
‘Danger’ Line: Panarin – Chytil – Lafreniere
The games that the Rangers have played well this season, the “2nd” line of Panarin, Chytil, and Lafreniere have been the best looking drivers of play on the team. This line is ‘Danger’-ous because Panarin looks like a man with a real drive to silence the haters due to his post-season play. It looks like he took the off-season seriously, and he has come out on the ice every night looking faster than last season. Panarin (1G 4A) also ties the team lead for points at 5 (tied with Fox: 1G 4A, Kreider: 4G 1A, Zibanejad: 5A).
Even though the line as a whole has looked good, Chytil and Lafreniere still only have 1 point a piece. Chytil has been making a name for himself among the fans as potentially having a breakout season, and why not? He actively looks to shoot first instead of looking for the perfect pass, and playing with a distributor like Panarin should boost his point production. Lafreniere, on the other hand, was the subject of controversy leading up to the first game of the season until he scored the first goal of the season and appeared to shut the haters up. However, since then, he has gone pointless in the following 3 games.
That means all 3 members of the former ‘Kid-Line’ (Lafreniere, Chytil, Kakko) have 1 point a piece. It’s clear that the veterans on the team have been producing, so something has to happen to get these kids going on their respective lines, otherwise, fans might keep seeing disappointing results.
‘Tro-checking Line’: Cuylle – Trocheck – Wheeler
Again, I’ll reference the X post shared above. The only line with better xGF% than KZK is the top line for Vegas, who are off to a 5-0 start, and the Rangers bonafide 3rd line, I like to call the ‘Tro-checking Line.’
This line also has better advanced stats than the actual score sheet, but it’s hard to complain about being #2 in xGF%.
Will Cuylle has fit in well on this third line and even chipped in for his first NHL goal in the 5-3 loss to Columbus. The biggest thing to focus on for this kid is to keep his composure and do the little things right. Aside from his goal Cuylle has been solid and unnoticeable, but that is a good thing. Cuylle doesn’t have to stand out to stay on this roster, and if he can continue to stay off the ‘bad’ radar and remain defensively responsible then it looks like Cuylle is here to stay.
Trocheck and Wheeler, on the other hand, don’t have this luxury. They should be standing out in an eye-catching and positive way. While trocheck hasn’t been bad, he still seems to be cursed by hitting posts and missing empty nets rather than finding the twine. He is sitting at 2 points with a goal and an assist, even though he has been getting ample power play time on the first unit.
Wheeler has been unnoticeably bad so far this season. There have been multiple games where it’s hard to remember a meaningful play or role that Wheeler has had. It’s clear that Coach Laviolette sees this too, since Wheeler has recently been taken off the second power play unit.
4th Line Grind: Goodrow – Bonino – Pitlick / Vesey
Outside of an injury, it seems that Goodrow and Bonino are locked in as the wing-center pairing on this 4th line. Pitlick and Vesey have been rotating, and while it appears the coaching staff favors Pitlick on a night-to-night basis, Rangers fans have seen the impact Vesey has made up and down the lineup, so it’s impossible to rule him out on a nightly basis.
This line is never meant to be relied upon for scoring and hasn’t yet impacted the score sheet meaningfully in the opening few games. However, it is clear that Bonino is a face-off specialist with a 63.3% win percentage through 4 games. That and the help from Michael Peca, former face-off specialist, has already improved the Rangers overall face-off win percentage to 56.3%. Both percentages are over a small sample size, but one can only hope they reflect strong and consistent face-off play for the rest of the season.
Adjustments
As of the latest Rangers game, the line-blender was turned on, mixing up the lines that were set for the first 3 games of the season. It seems like Laviolette will go back to the originally set lines, but for the underwhelming game against Nashville, it looked like Panarin and Wheeler switched lines, but to no avail, the Rangers still fell to the Predators 4-1. We also briefly saw the Kid-line make an appearance, but it looked like that could have been because the top powerplay unit had just come off the ice, which would jumble all of the lines. The kid line got some looks immediately following a power play last year with the idea that the speed the kids provide would overpower an already tired team right off the kill, watch for Laviolette to put together some different lines like this in specific scenarios.
Call-Outs
Of the Forward group, it’s clear a few guys have to step up if these efforts are going to turn into more goals and, ultimately, more wins. The kids, Kaapo Kakko, Filip Chytil, and Alexis Lafreniere, need to be more effective in producing 5v5 points. This is the same story as the last few seasons, but the kids are not getting top power play time with this team at this time. They need to find another way to be productive.
The vet group has been producing more, but Wheeler needs to be more noticeable, or noticeable at all… and Trocheck needs to bury the open net goals for him to be considered more effective.
