The Rangers’ five-forward experiment on the primary power-play unit didn’t lead to any man-up targets in Friday night time’s loss to the Maple Leafs.
However with common PP quarterback Adam Fox out of the lineup with an upper-body damage, head coach Peter Laviolette may follow the alignment a minimum of for Sunday’s dwelling recreation towards Nashville.
The Rangers couldn’t work on the ability play Saturday as a result of solely six gamers took half in an non-obligatory skate in Tarrytown, however Laviolette mentioned the teaching employees and the gamers have been “going through things and talking about things.”
With out Fox, Laviolette used a quintet of forwards Artemi Panarin, Mika Zibanejad, J.T. Miller, Vincent Trochek and Alexis Lafrenière as his PP1 for the primary time towards the Maple Leafs.
They didn’t rating in three alternatives, and the Rangers mustered solely 4 photographs in 4:23 total in these conditions.
“I wish it was working right away, but I think this is honestly the first time [Saturday] we get to watch it, look at it and see, what are the things that we can do better? And how can we use the fact that we’re five forwards?” Zibanejad mentioned after the sport. “Obviously, we wanted to be better today and we weren’t, but we’ll look at it and make sure we’re better the next time.”
After Matt Rempe performed a powerful recreation and scored a purpose in Tuesday’s win over the Islanders, the 6-foot-8 ahead logged simply seven shifts for 4:12 of ice time towards the Leafs, together with one 30-second shift within the last 30-plus minutes.
Requested for the explanation he in the reduction of on the fourth line, Laviolette mentioned, “Sometimes it’s just the flow of the game and the feel of the game.” He additionally mentioned it was “one of the best games I’ve seen out of Trocheck’s line and I wanted to get them out there.”
Chris Kreider was positioned on IR, however he may be activated at any time and nonetheless is taken into account each day.
Kreider, who has missed the previous three video games with an upper-body damage believed to be unrelated to a earlier again difficulty, was one of many few gamers on the ice Saturday.
Brett Berard was recalled from AHL Hartford.
