The Rangers are at an impasse when it comes to their power play.
Head coach Mike Sullivan and assistant David Quinn assembled a five-forward unit in the wake of Adam Fox’s shoulder injury, citing that quarterbacking the power play wasn’t a strength of remaining blue line candidates Scott Morrow, Vladislav Gavrikov and Braden Schneider.
Turns out the somewhat unconventional alignment has become a detriment to the Rangers.
“They showed us enough to stay with it for as long as we have, but they showed us enough to make a change,” Sullivan said after the Blueshirts went 0-for-3 with the man advantage in an unsettling 3-0 loss to the Blackhawks on Wednesday night. “We put a defenseman up there. I’m not sure what we’re going to do moving forward, but obviously Fox is not an easy guy to replace.”
Since losing Fox, the Rangers power play is 0-for-11 with one shorthanded goal against over the last five games.
The group, which featured Will Cuylle, Mika Zibanejad, Artemi Panarin, J.T. Miller and Vincent Trocheck, showed early flashes of doing everything but scoring.
While they never found the back of the net, the power play started generating less and less zone time while growing more and more dysfunctional.
It was Chicago’s second-period shorty that finally prompted Sullivan to insert Morrow, whose puck-moving abilities made him an enticing addition in the K’Andre Miller trade.
Replacing Cuylle on the Rangers’ last two power plays Wednesday night, Morrow — a rookie skating in his ninth game with the Blueshirts — naturally wasn’t able to make much of an impact in such a situation.
“It’s not executing well enough,” Trocheck said. “Frustration kicks in. You try to force a few things and then you end up getting three, four regroups per power play. It’s just not the recipe for success.”
For a coach who has been so steadfast in his decision making up until this point, Sullivan admitting he’s unsure of where to go from here with the power play is notable.
The Rangers, owners of the fourth-lowest goals per game average in the NHL (2.56), haven’t scored a power-play goal in nearly two weeks. Producing offense has been an uphill battle for much of the season, and the man advantage has long been a key factor for the Rangers.
With 72 power plays entering Thursday’s slate of games, the Rangers had the second-fewest man-advantage opportunities in the league, behind only the Penguins’ (71).
Struggling to maintain possession and not forcing opponents to defend have contributed to that greatly.
There will presumably be adjustments made to the units at practice Friday.
The sooner the better, because Fox won’t be back in the lineup any time soon.
“It’s hard to get in rhythm when you don’t get any power plays,” Zibanejad said. “You go that long not getting anything. You don’t score on your first power play. It comes after a few when you get a feeling. You could probably score first, but you get more opportunities and I don’t know. Maybe we haven’t deserved the next power play. I don’t know. I just feel like we could have probably had a few more. I think that the more power plays we have, the more chances we’re going to get.”
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