As December turns to January, NHL training camps will open ahead of an abbreviated 56-game regular season. Some teams bolstered their rosters with impressive additions, while others were labelled as offseason losers. For the youth-leaning Rangers, it’s not as simple as whether they won or lost the offseason.
When the Rangers open training camp in two weeks, they will return a largely unchanged roster from the 2019-20 squad that was swept by the Carolina Hurricanes in the 2020 playoff qualifying round. The fortune of drafting Alexis Lafreniere first overall creates plenty of buzz, though a lack of reinvention through free agency or trade places the burden of improvement squarely on head coach David Quinn’s ability to fast-track the development of promising youngsters.
It was an offseason that felt like a sideways step. There wasn’t a game-changing acquisition, yet there wasn’t an overreaction to last season’s conclusion. General manager Jeff Gorton didn’t press the panic switch by making sweeping changes out of desperation and frustration. The organizational plan is to stay the course by trusting the process of incorporating youth alongside a veteran core led by Artemi Panarin, Mika Zibanejad, Chris Kreider, and Jacob Trouba.
The departures of longtime Rangers Henrik Lundqvist, Marc Staal and Jesper Fast created a leadership void that will need to be assumed by prime-aged successors. Kreider, Zibanejad, Panarin, and Trouba appear to be the mostly likely contenders to earn the captain’s ‘C’ that has been vacated since the February 2018 trade of Ryan McDonagh.
Signing aging defenseman Jack Johnson to a one-year, $1.15 million contract is the embodiment of an unimaginative offseason. The Blueshirts replaced a regressing 33-year-old left-handed defenseman in Staal with another in Johnson – heck, they even share the same birth date. A best-case scenario would be Johnson transforming into something slightly better than the past three seasons he spent as the league’s worst-performing defenseman. Yet, any amount of stability offered by Johnson would be a road block to the Rangers’ need to offer NHL ice time to high-potential youngsters.
The short-term scenario of Johnson, 31-year-old Brendan Smith, and 30-year-old Anthony Bitetto competing for spots on the left side appears out of step with the long-term plan. Undoubtedly, 22-year-old Ryan Lindgren will be one of the three opening night LHD. If 2020-21 is a development year, why not give youth a chance by handing the lion’s share of left-side ice time to Lindgren and some combination of K’Andre Miller, Libor Hajek, and Tarmo Reunanen?
Among forward training camp invites, 2019-20 Hobey Baker finalist Morgan Barron is an intriguing prospect. The 22-year-old center-wing could force his way on the opening night roster should he impress in training camp. If Barron makes the big club, it will be interesting to see if the Blueshirts can accommodate both him and Brett Howden on a fourth line, with one of the pair slid to the wing. Veterans Kevin Rooney, Colin Blackwell, and Phillip Di Giuseppe and a slew of young training camp invitees could also figure into the competition.
A four-to-six man taxi squad essentially creates an extended roster. So, several forwards and defensemen and a third goalie (Keith Kinkaid) who normally would be AHL bound would travel and practice with the Rangers.
Between the start of camp and the Jan. 13 regular season start date, there’s plenty of decisions for the Rangers to ponder.
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