Discussion of the Day: 10/16/23
Good Morning, and happy Monday everyone. The Rangers lost to the Columbus Blue Jackets on Saturday in a game that many expected them to win easily, and they are back in action tonight for the home opener at Madison Square Garden vs. the up-and-coming Arizona Coyotes.
The Rangers’ upcoming schedule is pretty spread out, and some of it is likely because the team will be heading on the road for a trip to Canada soon.
Today’s prompt is a basic one, once we have more games played and things to dive into my hope is that we can have some more lively discussions, and it concerns depth deployment. We’ve already seen Jimmy Vesey and Tyler Pitlick play one game, and Zac Jones just played for a banged up Ryan Lindgren.
What are your thoughts on rotating players in and out throughout the season, to the point where we see less players skate in 80 games or more?
This is essentially a load management question, and the fact that Lindgren was held out of Game 2 was surprising to me given everything we’ve seen from him in the past. A lot was made of the fact that the Rangers overhauled their medical staff, and also brought in some rest and recovery specialists and other people to change things up.
The Rangers have a considerable amount of depth stashed in the AHL right now, and we all expect someone like Brennan Othmann to get a chance later on in the year. Would you be in favor of rotating people in, or do you think so far it’s been a case of just trying to get a read on bottom of the lineup players, and it was a case of wanting to keep Lindgren fresh for the home opener? If you are in favor of “load management” what player(s) would you like to see rotated in and why?
I think that the Rangers are going to try some things early in the year to find the right line combinations, and try to develop chemistry so that their lines and defense pairings are as comfortable as possible come playoff time. I also think that once they find something that works, they will want to have some potential “break glass in case of emergency” combos that they know are successful in the event an injury forces them to change things up.
That said, I think early on it makes sense to keep the top three lines together and play them as much as possible, granted they are all good to go, but once their playoff situation becomes clearer, I am all for getting people right for the postseason if there’s an opportunity to do so. Those discussions and thoughts are many months away, but I still think it was interesting to see a change from last year in the sense that the coach was willing to tinker with a winning lineup (Vesey for Pitlick), and a notable warrior like Lindgren was held out of a game.
If you are going to tonight’s home opener, have a great time. If you are watching it at home or going to a bar, that’s cool too. Have a great rest of the day, and LGR!
