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New York Rangers: The Rangers aren’t bad, they just aren’t good

By John Carroll Jr.

New York Rangers (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)
New York Rangers (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images) /
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The New York Rangers’ 2018-2019 season is in full swing now and they are teaching us a lot. The Rangers have been in every game they played. Here is the thing, they are not bad, but they are not good either.

The New York Rangers‘ season of rebuilding has been interesting so far. They have played at home, on the road, against the East, against the west, have pretty much done it all already.

However, and there is a “Yogi-sim” in there somewhere, the New York Rangers have not played that poorly, but they also have not played spectacularly.

The Rangers are somewhere in the middle between a solid team and a poor one. But, it would not even feel right to call them mediocre.

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The Rangers’ record is well below .500 already, but they also have some points in the bank with a win against the Sharks.

So, what is deal with the Rangers?

It is obvious that they do not have the talent to keep up with the rest of their NHL enemies. That is open and the intent.

What really is going to measure the success of this team is not wins or losses rather, how bad they lose or how narrowly they win.

If they lose by just a goal, which is a theme so far this season, then as long as the young players molded well and showed chemistry that is good.

If they win a game, but only because a player like Henrik Lundqvist stood on his head and stopped 50 shots, there will be room to question what happened to young talent.

That is all part of the process and the learning curve for the rookies is going to exist all season.

Luckily for the Rangers, their new coach, David Quinn, is not going to be complacent or content with poor play this year.

He has already been shuffling his lines around and only giving ice time to people who have earned it and playing for it.

He already announced that he is moving Filip Chytil from center to wing to see where his talent can take him. The Rangers have that kind of room for experiment.

Overall though, the Rangers have played five games this season. They won once, got blown out once, and played it close in all the others.

The reason for not winning is because of an overall lack of talent and the reason for being close in most games is the result of good coaching.

On paper, the Rangers should be getting blown out every game. If not for David Quinn laying down the law, the players wouldn’t really be playing for anything.

Instead, the spark is there because they need to earn their next start and prove they belong in the future.

Bad hockey teams lack effort, heart, and direction.

Good hockey teams have talent, wins games, and get lucky.

Mediocre hockey teams, win some, lose some, play well in bunches, lose some in bunches

Right now, the Rangers are none of those things. They have direction (the rebuild) but also have a lot of heart.

The Rangers do not have talent, and do not win games.

Also, all season thus far, they have strung together some great periods each night, so they are consistent.

So, yeah, the Rangers really are in an interesting spot.

Their standard on how to evaluate them never was where they are in the standings. And that the games themselves are showcasing the potential.

The Rangers, based on that are probably a successful team this year. But, that is only on the merit they were not supposed to win and just one standard.

But, winning is still important to an extent and they have not quite done that.

It is interesting to see how the rest of this season will play out. They are bound to break through and win some games and some rookie are bound to hit a wall in their development.

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The Rangers, right now, are not bad. They also are not good. We will just have to see what happens.

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