The New York Rangers’ offense came alive on Monday night at Madison Square Garden, en route to a decisive 5-2 victory over the Anaheim Ducks.
Leading into Monday night’s contest, the Rangers had scored just one goal in their previous two games, with their offense struggling to produce consistently on both five-on-five play and the power play.
“Our last two games, I don’t think we have been at our best,” Sullivan said on Monday morning. “Are we satisfied with what we are generating offensively? No. Do we think there is another level to it? Yes we do.”
Despite the Rangers’ overall positive start to the season, their success was driven in spite of their offensive statistics. Their 2.01 GF/60 ranked 26th in the NHL, and their offensive zone time at even strength ranked 17th in the league.
Meanwhile, the Blueshirts held a 20% power-play percentage, going 6-for-30 on the season before Monday night.
The Rangers’ recent offensive woes were flipped on their head against the Ducks.
Sean Durzi set the tone with a goal less than two minutes into the contest off a shot from the point, and their offensive onslaught continued from there.
J.T. Miller’s power-play goal in the second period wiped away the frustration of failing to convert on a first-period 5-on-3 opportunity and brought much-needed energy to a struggling Rangers’ man advantage.
The power play on which the Rangers scored featured Gabe Perreault in place of Pavel Dorofeyev, which is a change we've seen Sullivan make before this season in hopes of a shake-up.
However, Sullivan confirmed this swap was not performance-based, but instead because Dorofeyev failed to go for a change on the team’s previous power play in the first period, and he had to face repercussions for it to set a precedent.
“I’ve been asking the power play for a number of games now that the first unit– they have to change smarter. And when the puck gets dumped down 2 or 3 times, and they’ve got to go 200 feet to get it and then work back into the offensive zone, they should change – and Pav didn’t,” Sullivan said of his power-play swap. “At some point, there needs to be some accountability around it. Unfortunately for Pav, he was the guy. I told the power play guys that, we have to be smart. We've got another unit that's pretty good also.”
Dorofeyev was later placed back onto the first power-play unit, and while he’s been snake-bitten in his attempts to find the back of the net, as indicated by his two goals in 11 games, Dorofeyev led the team with five shots on net, along with a game-high 11 shot attempts, and Sullivan felt he took steps in the right direction.
“I thought it was one of Pav's better games,” Sullivan emphasized. “He had a number of scoring chances. The puck didn't go in for him, but I thought he was stronger on the ball. I thought he was better in the puck battles... I know he wants to score, and if he plays games like this, it will go in the net for him.”
The Alexis Lafrenière-Mika Zibanejad-Perreault line showed off its impressive chemistry with a tic-tac-toe goal from Lafrenière to Zibanejad to Perreault.
A trio that generated offense at a high rate last season was reassembled during training camp and recently put back together, as all three players have continued to get the most out of each other, combining for a total of four goals this season with an expected goals-for percentage of 54.85%.
Oliver Bjorkstrand, whom the Rangers have alternated between utilizing in a top-six and bottom-six role, as well as on the second power-play unit, finished the night with two goals.
Despite not playing a top-six role consistently, Bjorkstrand remains a scoring threat, and Sullivan has attempted to find more ways to get the veteran forward on the ice by integrating him into top-six lines at certain points in games.
“Thrilled for him,” Sullivan said of Bjorkstrand. “He’s a great kid, he’s a great player. He can really shoot it. His two goals, they looked exactly the same: bar down. He has a great release, he can shoot it. He can certainly score goals. I was happy for him, I thought he played well.”
The Rangers were able to control the pace of play and thrived on the rush, helping generate numerous high-quality scoring chances while staying true to their well-structured defensive game that has brought them so much success to open the season.
“I thought we did a great job,” Sullivan said. “We just took what the game gave us when we had opportunities to create off the rush. I think we were making good decisions for the most part. There was pretty good execution... I'm happy for the guys. I thought we played well, and I thought we created a fair amount of offense just off our own defense.”
After a sluggish couple of games, the Rangers were able to find their offensive rhythm on Monday night and will look to carry that momentum on the road on Thursday night against the Toronto Maple Leafs.