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When the New York Rangers clinched a playoff berth on March 26, there wasn’t a celebration. There was barely an acknowledgment of the feat in their dressing room after an overtime win against the visiting Philadelphia Flyers.

The accomplishment was procedural, a bridge to greater things.

“If you want to lift the Stanley Cup, you’ve got to get into the playoffs first,” New York center Mika Zibanejad said. “We have bigger goals. That’s Step 1 for us.”

Step 2 is likely winning the Metro Division, the first time the Rangers will have topped their group since 2014-15. Step 3 could be winning the Presidents’ Trophy for the NHL’s best record this season. Then the real journey begins, step after step, until the Rangers lift the Stanley Cup for the first time since 1994 and the second time since 1940.

Unless they stumble and fall out of the postseason, of course.

The Rangers are a confounding team, and not just because they exited the postseason after one round in 2023. On the surface, they’ve been dominant in the standings and solid on both sides of the puck: Through 78 games, they were sixth in goals and seventh in goals against per game. But look under the hood and one finds a team whose 5-on-5 analytics are utterly pedestrian and in some cases below average.

“The New York Rangers are a bit of an anomaly,” said Meghan Chayka, co-founder of Stathletes.

“Elite special teams and goaltending have boosted average processes and results at 5-on-5,” said Mike Kelly, director of analytics and insights at Sportlogiq.

We explored this imbalance earlier this season. The Rangers have only become more successful since then. With the postseason approaching, it seemed like an ideal time to check again to get a sense of how close the Blueshirts might be to capturing the Cup.

Along with Kelly and Chayka, we picked the hockey brains of Garret Hohl, a data analyst who writes The Five Hohl; Jack Fraser of EP Rinkside; and Micah Blake McCurdy of HockeyViz. All of them sought to answer some questions about the Rangers before the Stanley Cup playoffs start, including the biggest one: Are they legitimate Stanley Cup contenders, despite what the analytics tell us?

How do you square the gap between what the analytics tell us about the Rangers and what they’ve done in the standings?

What’s clear about the Rangers is that they have elite special teams. Through 78 games, New York was fourth in the NHL on the power play (26.4%) and third on the penalty kill (83.6%). Artemi Panarin has scored 61% of his points on the man advantage. Zibanejad and Chris Kreider have been solid contributors on both units.

They feasted on the power play under then-coach Gerard Gallant last season too, but the arrival of Peter Laviolette and his staff has improved the penalty kill year over year.

Hohl noted that the Rangers’ penalty differential is also something that sets them apart: Through 78 games, they were fourth in the NHL at plus-32 in penalties drawn versus penalties taken.

As extraordinary as their special teams are, the Rangers’ 5-on-5 play is a bit more concerning, analytically.

“The Rangers have a very ordinary record this season of 5v5 chance generation,” McCurdy said.

This season, the Rangers are 23rd in expected goals percentage at 5-on-5 (48.6%) through 78 games and slightly underwater on percentage of shot attempts per 60 minutes (49.8%), ranking 19th overall. During their recent 13-4-1 heater, their percentage of shot attempts has jumped up to 11th in the league.

Chayka noted that the Rangers’ puck possession has improved after general manager Chris Drury acquired center Alex Wennberg of the Seattle Kraken and forward Jack Roslovic from the Columbus Blue Jackets before the NHL trade deadline, on March 8. While neither trade created headlines like one for Pittsburgh Penguins winger Jake Guentzel might have for the Blueshirts, they’ve made a subtle positive impact already.

“Those additions have meant nearly a full minute more of puck possession per game at 5-on-5,” said Chayka, noting that the Rangers’ total puck possession time jumped from 15:29 at 5-on-5 in their first 62 games to 16:21 in the following 14 games with Wennberg and Roslovic.

But the Rangers are still just 21st in expected goals percentage. Their expected goals per 60 minutes is a few percentage points weaker than the average NHL team, and their suppression is a full percentage point lower than average.

“This is a little surprising for a team at the top of the standings,” McCurdy said. “But while 5-on-5 chance rates are the first and most important thing about any team — I’ve repeatedly called them ‘the foundation of the sport,’ and I stand by that — they aren’t the only thing.”

No, they’re not the only thing, and the Rangers are proving that — like, for example, when these goals are scored or allowed during the game.

In baseball, not all hits are created equally. A grand slam and a solo home run both go into the HR category on the players’ stats page, but obviously, one had a greater impact on the final score than the other.

It’s not completely analogous, but McCurdy believes that not all goals are created equal, either.

“The regulation goals they’ve scored have come at relatively high-offensive-leverage moments, when they’ve tipped games in their favor, and less often in games that are still safely decided,” he said. “The Rangers have also benefited from the goals they’ve allowed coming at relatively lower-leverage times than you’d expect from pure chance, so that the goaltending they’ve got has benefitted them more than you might expect.”

McCurdy believes these two effects have added upward of nine standings points to the Rangers this season. “They’re the second-luckiest team this season in this sense, after Washington,” he said.

The Rangers have scored the first goal in a game 44 times, tied for fifth in the NHL this season, but they’re also first in the NHL winning percentage (.588) after giving up a contest’s first goal. They’re 33-3-2 when leading after two periods, but they also have the highest winning percentage (.346) when trailing after two periods.

Through 78 games, no team has had won more one-goal games than the Rangers (22), and no team has had a better winning percentage in those games than their 22-4-4 record.

Chayka noted that the Rangers have some shared DNA in that regard with last season’s Presidents’ Trophy winners, the Boston Bruins, who led the NHL in winning percentage in one-goal games and when trailing first.

Their playoff fate might indicate something for the Rangers,” she said, ominously, referencing the Bruins’ shocking first-round loss last year.

The Rangers also have feasted on the Metro Division this season.

“Team goal differentials and the standings tend to have a fairly strong correlation, but that relationship is a lot weaker this year in the Metro,” McCurdy said of the Rangers. “On top of that, they have potentially overperformed their in-division goal differential. They have about a 0.78 in-division point percentage compared to 0.67 outside the division, despite outscoring their divisional opponents by a less significant margin.”

Obviously, some things have broken right for New York to be challenging for the Presidents’ Trophy. But the sum total of the Rangers’ performance wouldn’t dramatically change if their luck did, according to Kelly.

“If you ran this season back again, all things being equal, there’s a good chance the Rangers wouldn’t have quite as good a record, but I don’t believe they would be that far off,” he said. “There are a few other playoff teams that are equal if not greater examples of likely overperforming in terms of process versus results this season.”

Fraser trusts the process. He believes the Rangers are better than what the public analytics models like expected goals are presenting, noting that tracking data reveals them to be the best team at passes across the slot and in the top five for preventing them, for example.

Fraser said there’s about a three-point difference between public and private models for the Rangers’ projected points based on expected goal differential.

“What gets them to the 115 points they’re projected for now is a combination of finishing and goaltending, which has been consistent throughout the season,” Fraser said. “Igor Shesterkin has been fine. But most notably, they’ve gotten excellent performance from a backup for the first time in years.”


What impresses you the most about the Rangers, and what leaves you most confused about them?

The most common theme in the responses: While the Rangers don’t excel at everything, they’re also not terrible at anything.

“They’ve got a lot of pathways to winning games,” McCurdy said. “That will make them hard to play against in the playoffs, where you’d prefer to say, ‘Well, their main strength is X and our plan for that is Y.’ There are too many strengths, and the weaknesses don’t really stick out.”

The worst that could be said about some of the Rangers’ 5-on-5 metrics is that they’re ordinary or slightly below average. But this isn’t a team getting cratered by opponents every game then relying on Shesterkin and Jonathan Quick to drag them into a playoff seed.

Kelly believes the goaltending just needs to be is sufficient for the Rangers to thrive.

“They are virtually unbeatable when they get adequate goaltending, which, since the All-Star break, is far more often than not,” he said. “The Rangers lead the NHL in goals saved above expected per 60 minutes since Shesterkin’s reset at the break. They give up more chances than some other elite teams, but their combination of scoring ability — though top-heavy — and goaltending makes them a real threat.”

Kelly noted that in the first 41 games in which the Rangers’ goalies posted a positive goals saved above expected, they won 39 of them, the best winning percentage in the NHL in that category. They won 95% of those games, with no other team finishing north of 90% in that span.

That’s the goal-prevention story. The goal-scoring story is equally as compelling.

McCurdy noted that the Rangers roster “is good at turning chances into goals, considerably better than league average.”

There’s no better example of this than Panarin, whose 46 goals in 78 games shattered his previous career high. He is fifth in the NHL in goals versus expected goals (12.44), with a 16.1% shooting rate.

His dominance has helped make the Rangers’ top line with Alexis Lafreniere and Vincent Trocheck a “superb” trio, according to Fraser.

“It’s unbelievable how often they manage to get the goalie moving by passing the puck; according to AllThreeZones, all three of them are in the top 15 in high-danger passes leading to a shot,” he said. “What’s most surprising is that Laf and Trocheck have struggled to score goals relative to the quality of their opportunities. So, the question becomes: Will their postseason opponents force them to play a more grinding style or will they start to capitalize even more?”

There’s another key group that has Fraser a little more concerned: The defensive pairing of Adam Fox and Ryan Lindgren, long one of the NHL’s most effective duos.

“What happened to them? The on-ice goal numbers are terrific, as usual, but that team is uncharacteristically getting out-chanced by a huge margin,” he said. “Can Lindgren get back on track?”

Fox and Lindgren had an expected goals per 60 minutes of 2.37 last season, but it has ballooned to 2.83 this season.

Kelly was a little concerned about the Rangers being a top-heavy team. Their top six scorers are all over 50 points on the season; no one else has had more than 30 points through 78 games.

“Can they get some offense from their bottom six? The Wennberg line has been on the right side of things but pretty low-event in its minutes,” Kelly said.

McCurdy was confounded by why the Rangers aren’t even better than they are.

“How [can] their 5-on-5 results manage to be as average as they are, considering the talent necessary to succeed at special teams,” he said. “I guess special teams really do deserve the name.”

Which all leads back to the biggest question about the Rangers.

“Are they for real?” Kelly asked. “I think that’s what we’re all trying to figure out here. As mentioned, they are probably not quite what their record shows. But every time I think I have a handle on them, they surprise me.”


How legitimate are the Rangers as a Stanley Cup contender?

Being the best isn’t always the best thing in the NHL. The Presidents’ Trophy has been awarded to the team with the league’s best record since 1985-86. That team has gone on to win the Stanley Cup only eight times — including the 1993-94 Rangers.

New York has the fifth-best odds at ESPN BET to win the championship. Stathletes gives the Blueshirts a 4.8% chance of winning the Cup, which is 11th-best among current playoff teams.

Kelly said the Rangers would be in his second tier as a Stanley Cup contender.

“I don’t think they have fatal flaws, but it is a slippery slope when you rely so heavily on special teams and goaltending,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean you can’t get to a Cup Final or even win the Cup.”

Kelly noted that the Florida Panthers made the Stanley Cup Final last season with an expected goals rate of under 50% at 5-on-5 in the playoffs, an average power play and a lackluster penalty kill. The Tampa Bay Lightning rode dominant special teams and Andrei Vasilevskiy to lift the Cup in 2021.

“In the small sample size that are the Stanley Cup playoffs, elite shooting talent or luck, coupled with strong goaltending, can be enough to win it all,” Kelly noted. “The Rangers are capable of both.”

Hohl noted, using McCurdy’s research, the Rangers are good but that the areas in which the team excels are relatively “less important” when it comes to winning the Cup.

He added that 5-on-5 offense and goaltending are the two most important indicators for a Cup champion, “and they only got two of those going for them.” The next important gauges are 5-on-5 defense and the power play, he said, “and again, they only have one of those two going for them.” Being great on the penalty kills hasn’t been a dependable predictor of NHL champions.

That said, McCurdy feels the Rangers are “as good a bet as any other teams” to win the Cup.

“They’re hardly paper tigers,” he said. “Against general opposition, they have so many strong aspects to their game that they will have a good chance no matter who they play.”

Well, except for one team.

“They’ll match up poorly against a team like Carolina, who will be able to control 5-on-5 play against them almost entirely,” McCurdy said. “[The Canes] might be able to dictate a style of play that will keep the games at 5-on-5 most of the time.”

Chayka also noted that a second-round meeting with the Hurricanes could present a significant block in the road to the Stanley Cup for New York, as Carolina is the top team in the East, according to Stathletes’ Power Score.

Guentzel, the Hurricanes’ trade deadline coup, has eight goals in seven games against the Rangers in his postseason career.

There will be challenges for the Rangers in the playoffs. Plenty of them. But they’ve already shown to be better than expected. It is anyone’s Stanley Cup to lift. Why not bring it back to Broadway?

“This season is so wide open that I don’t have trouble imagining them getting hot at the right time,” Fraser concluded.

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Buffs coach: Stars ‘should be going 1-2’ in draft

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Buffs coach: Stars 'should be going 1-2' in draft

BOULDER, Colo. — For the horde of NFL talent evaluators and some bleachers full of fans, Colorado coach Deion Sanders said Friday that they all got to see the top two players available in this year’s NFL draft.

Quarterback Shedeur Sanders and Heisman Trophy winner Travis Hunter were among the 16 Colorado players who took part in the school’s showcase event for scouts, coaches and personnel executives from every NFL team. And Deion Sanders said the two marquee players confirmed what he has known for a long time.

“It’s tremendous,” Sanders said. “… They should be going 1-2 [in the draft], that’s the way I feel about it. They are the two best players in this draft. … The surest bets in this draft are those two young men, and I didn’t stutter or stammer when I said that.”

Neither Shedeur Sanders nor Hunter took part in most of the position drills or physical testing, but Sanders had a throwing session for just under an hour and Hunter was one of the wide receivers who participated. Neither player worked out at the scouting combine earlier this year, so it was the first time Sanders had thrown in such a setting since the end of the season. He showed some full seven-step drops and play-action from the shotgun and under center.

“I think I did pretty good, to my expectations,” said Sanders, who set the career FBS accuracy mark in his two years at Colorado (71.8%) to go with his 4,134 passing yards and 37 touchdowns last season. “I know I did the best in college football right now, for sure.”

Asked after the throwing session whether he believed he was the best quarterback in the draft, Sanders said: “I feel like I’m the No. 1 quarterback, and that’s what I know. But at the end of the day, I’m not stuck on that because it’s about the situation, so whatever situation, whatever franchise believes in me, I’m excited to go. … I’m comfortable in any situation.”

Players Hunter, who did not speak to the media after the workout, and Sanders met with the Cleveland Browns contingent, including team co-owner Jimmy Haslam, on Thursday night in Boulder.

“They got me really full,” Sanders said. “I definitely needed to go to the sauna after that. … It was a good vibe.”

Said Deion Sanders said: “[I] spoke to the owner, truly delightful. He was engaging. … I think one of those guys is going to be there [at No. 2].”

Hunter, the No. 1 player on Mel Kiper Jr.’s Big Board, did not do any defensive drills Friday, but he ran a full assortment of routes.

Colorado safety Shilo Sanders, Shedeur’s brother, offered plenty of encouragement, shouting commentary and clapping after each throw, including “not a lot of quarterbacks can make that throw” after one deep completion.

The highly attended event — by NFL representatives as well as fans packing small bleachers — had a festive atmosphere. Deion Sanders named it the “We Ain’t Hard 2 Find Showcase,” complete with a large lighted “The Showcase” sign next to the drills.

Hunter, who has said he wants to play offense and defense in the NFL, won the Chuck Bednarik (top defensive player) and Fred Biletnikoff (top receiver) awards in addition to the Heisman. He said whether he will primarily be a wide receiver or a cornerback in the NFL depends “on the team that picks me.”

On Friday, Deion Sanders said “ain’t nobody like Travis.”

Hunter had 96 catches for 1,258 yards and 15 touchdowns as a receiver last season to go with 35 tackles, 11 pass breakups and 4 interceptions at cornerback. In the Buffaloes’ regular-season finale against Oklahoma State, he became the only FBS player in the past 25 years with three scrimmage touchdowns on offense and an interception in the same game, according to ESPN Research.

He played 1,380 total snaps in Colorado’s 12 regular-season games: 670 on offense, 686 on defense and 24 on special teams. He played 1,007 total snaps in 2023.

Shilo Sanders, who hoped to show teams more speed than expected, ran a 4.52 40-yard dash after he measured in at 5-foot-11⅞, 196 pounds. He did not participate in the jumps or bench press that opened the workout, citing a right shoulder injury.

With all NFL eyes on the Colorado campus to see Shedeur Sanders throw, one player who made the most of it was wide receiver Will Sheppard. Sheppard, who measured 6-2¼, 196 pounds, ran the 40 in 4.56 and 4.54 to go with a 40½-inch vertical jump and a 10-foot-11 broad jump.

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O’s Henderson off IL; will make ’25 debut vs. KC

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O's Henderson off IL; will make '25 debut vs. KC

Baltimore Orioles All-Star shortstop Gunnar Henderson was activated from the 10-day injured list and will make his season debut Friday night against the Kansas City Royals.

Henderson has been sidelined with a right intercostal strain and missed the first seven games of the big league campaign.

The 23-year-old Henderson will lead off and play shortstop against the host Royals.

Henderson was injured during a spring training game Feb. 27. He was fourth in American League MVP voting last season when he batted .281 and racked up career bests of 37 homers and 92 RBIs.

Henderson completed a five-game rehab stint at Triple-A Norfolk on Wednesday. He batted .263 (5-for-19) with two homers and four RBIs and played four games at shortstop and one as the designated hitter. He did commit three errors.

“I think everybody’s looking forward to having Gunnar back on the team,” Baltimore manager Brandon Hyde said Thursday. “The rehab went really, really well. I talked to him a couple days ago, he feels great swinging the bat. The timing came, especially the last few days. He just had to get out there and get some reps defensively and get some games in, and it all went well.”

Baltimore optioned outfielder Dylan Carlson to Triple-A Norfolk to open up a roster spot. The 26-year-old was 0-for-4 with a run and RBI in two games this season.

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Life after OMG: Can 2025 Mets replicate their 2024 vibes?

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Life after OMG: Can 2025 Mets replicate their 2024 vibes?

When New York Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns attempted to assemble the best possible roster for the 2025 season this winter, the top priority was signing outfielder Juan Soto. Next was the need to replenish the starting rotation and bolster the bullpen. Then, days before pitchers and catchers reported for spring training, the lineup received one final significant reinforcement when first baseman Pete Alonso re-signed.

Acquiring a player with a singing career on the side didn’t make the cut.

“No, that is not on the list,” Stearns said with a smile.

Stearns’ decision not to re-sign Jose Iglesias, the infielder behind the mic for the viral 2024 Mets anthem “OMG,” was attributed to creating more roster flexibility. But it also hammered home a reality: The scrappy 2024 Mets, authors of a magical summer in Queens, are a thing of the past. The 2025 Mets, who will report to Citi Field for their home opener Friday, have much of the same core but also some prominent new faces — and the new, outsized expectations that come with falling two wins short of the World Series, then signing Soto to the richest contract in professional sports history.

But there’s a question surrounding this year’s team that you can’t put a price tag on: Can these Mets rekindle the magic — the vibes, the memes, the feel-good underdog story — that seemed to come out of nowhere to help carry them to Game 6 of the National League Championship Series last season?

“Last year the culture was created,” Mets shortstop Francisco Lindor said. “It’s a matter of continuing it.”

For all the success Stearns has engineered — his small-market Milwaukee Brewers teams reached the postseason five times in eight seasons after he became the youngest general manager in history in 2015 — the 40-year-old Harvard grad, like the rest of his front office peers knows there’s no precise recipe for clubhouse chemistry. There is no culture projection system. No Vibes Above Replacement.

“Culture is very important,” Stearns said last weekend in the visiting dugout at Daikin Park before his club completed an opening-weekend series against the Houston Astros. “Culture is also very difficult to predict.”

Still, it seems the Mets’ 2024 season will be all but impossible to recreate.

There was Grimace, the purple McDonald’s blob who spontaneously became the franchise’s unofficial mascot after throwing out a first pitch in June. “OMG,” performed under Iglesias’ stage name, Candelita, debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Latin Digital Songs chart, before a remix featuring Pitbull was released in October. Citi Field became a karaoke bar whenever Lindor stepped into the batter’s box with The Temptations’ “My Girl” as his walk-up song. Alonso unveiled a lucky pumpkin in October. They were gimmicks that might have felt forced if they hadn’t felt so right.

“I don’t know if what we did last year could be replicated because it was such a chaos-filled group,” Mets reliever Ryne Stanek said. “I don’t know if that’s replicable because there’s just too many things going on. I don’t know if that’s a sustainable model. But I think the expectation of winning is really important. I think establishing what we did last year and coming into this year where people are like, ‘Oh, no, that’s what we’re expecting to do,’ makes it different. It’s always a different vibe whenever you feel like you’re the hunter versus being the hunted.”

For the first two months last season, the Mets were terrible hunters. Lindor was relentlessly booed at Citi Field during another slow start. The bullpen got crushed. The losses piled up. The Mets began the season 0-5 and sunk to rock bottom on May 29 when reliever Jorge Lopez threw his glove into the stands during a 10-3 loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers that dropped the team to 22-33.

That night, the Mets held a players-only meeting. From there, perhaps coincidentally, everything changed. The Mets won the next day, and 67 of their final 107 games.

This year, to avoid an early malaise and to better incorporate new faces like Soto and Opening Day starter Clay Holmes, players made it a point to hold meetings during spring training to lay a strong foundation.

“At the end of the day, we know who we are and that’s the beauty of our club,” Alonso said. “Not just who we are talent-wise, but who each individual is as a man and a personality. For us, our major, major strength is our collective identity as a unit.”

Organizationally, the Mets are attempting a dual-track makeover: Becoming perennial World Series contenders while not taking themselves too seriously.

The commemorative purple Grimace seat installed at Citi Field in September — Section 302, Row 6, Seat 12 in right field — remains there as part of a two-year contract. Last week, the franchise announced it will feature a New York-city themed “Five Borough” race at every home game — with a different mascot competing to represent each borough. For a third straight season, USA Today readers voted Citi Field — home of the rainbow cookie egg roll, among many other innovative treats — as having the best ballpark food in baseball.

In the clubhouse, their identity is evolving.

“I’m very much in the camp that you can’t force things,” Mets starter Sean Manaea said. “I mean, you can, but you don’t really end up with good results. And if you wait for things to happen organically, then sometimes it can take too long. So, there’s like a nudging of sorts. It’s like, ‘Let’s kind of come up with something, but not force it.’ So there’s a fine balance there and you just got to wait and see what happens.”

Stearns believes it starts with what the Mets can control: bringing positive energy every day and fostering a family atmosphere. It’s hard to quantify, but vibes undoubtedly helped fuel the Mets’ 2024 success. It’ll be a tough act to follow.

“It’s fluid,” manager Carlos Mendoza said. “I like where guys are at as far as the team chemistry goes and things like that and the connections and the relationships. But it’ll continue to take some time. And winning helps, clearly.”

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