They have babies on the back end, no doubt about that when you are talking about a top four that features 24-year-old’s Adam Fox and Ryan Lindgren and 22-year-old K’Andre Miller plus a third pair showcasing 20-year-old Braden Schneider.
But the Rangers are no longer young up front. And they are not even young-ish when it comes to their top six that will assume most of the responsibility and most of the burden when the Blueshirts skate into their first playoff series since 2017.
Barring unforeseen developments, when the tournament begins the first week of May, the Rangers’ top two lines will comprise 31-year-old Chris Kreider with 29-year-old Mika Zibanejad and 28-year-old Frank Vatrano on one unit while 30-year-old Artemi Panarin skates with 28-year-old Ryan Strome and 27-year-old Andrew Copp on the other.
The greying of the top six at just the right time represents perhaps the most consequential impact of the deadline-proximate deals pulled off by general manager Chris Drury, who added Copp, Vatrano, 35-year-old defenseman Justin Braun and currently injured 27-year-old Tyler Motte to the roster.
Believe me, if the 2022 Rangers have 16 playoff wins in them, these deals will be remembered as fondly as the ones at the 1994 deadline that helped transform the team into Stanley Cup champions.
“We talked about it early in the year, we have some young kids that we’re real happy with but a little more experience doesn’t hurt us,” head coach Gerard Gallant said in advance of Thursday’s match on the Island. “I think we’re showing that since all those deals.
“You’ve got more experience out there and the kids are fitting in well where they’re playing.”
Truth be told (and that’s always the objective here), with Kaapo Kakko down with an unspecified right leg injury, 20-year-old Alexis Lafreniere and 22-year-old Filip Chytil are the only two young forwards in the lineup. And they have worked well together on the third line with 29-year-old Barclay Goodrow the last couple of contests after Kakko had a big game in Lafreniere’s spot before going down.
Copp was expected to be a top-sixer upon his acquisition from the Jets, though Gallant could alternatively have gone with Goodrow on the Panarin-Strome unit (as he’d done eight times during the season) while using No. 18 in the middle of the third line.
It’s Vatrano, though, whose top-six inclusion might be a surprise, for he had generally been a bottom-sixer for the flourishing Panthers prior to his acquisition on March 16, five days ahead of the deadline. He spent his first four games as a Ranger with Panarin and Strome.
But the adjustment first made for the March 25 match against the Penguins has taken hold. The Rangers’ top of the order is as settled as it has been since Jean Ratelle played between Vic Hadfield and Rod Gilbert while Walter Tkaczuk centered Steve Vickers and Billy Fairbairn. Well, maybe not quite that long, but you get the idea. (Even in 2013-14 and 2014-15, the club was constantly juggling top-six combinations.)
Over its 13 games intact, the Kreider-Zibanejad-Vatrano unit has been on the ice for 10 goals scored while allowing just two. The Corsi rate is 59.67 percent with a shot share of 63.49 percent, and an xGF percentage of 57.86. Not too shabby.
“We expected what we’re getting from him, to be honest with you,” Gallant said of Vatrano, who has 10 points (6-4) both at five-on-five and overall through this 13-game span. “He’s been in the league for a while and has the reputation as a guy who can shoot the puck and score.
“You’ve got to make sure he’s going every night. So when he got the opportunity to go up with those guys, he’s been able to stay there with the way he played.”
Vatrano is a straight-line guy with offensive flair whose shoot-first philosophy provides an interesting contrast to Kreider and Zibanejad’s former partner, Pavel Buchnevich, for one.
“He’s a threat and when he gets the puck he shoots the puck. Sometimes we get frustrated because our guys hold the puck too long and try to make the pretty plays. They did it [Tuesday against Winnipeg]] and I’m yelling on the bench, ‘Shoot the puck, shoot the puck,’ and then they shove it down my throat and score a goal,” Gallant said, referring to the sequence in which Panarin traversed the zone before setting up Fox. “So it’s funny how our team is.
“We make some real good plays, we have some good O-zone possession but Vatrano is a guy that shoots the puck. You need a little bit of everything. I think that’s what we added to our group. We added a guy who is going to shoot the puck more than he’s going to pass it.”
The Rangers have added diversity. The Rangers have added experience. The Rangers have added, gasp, age. There is your rebuild.