The Battle of the Hudson Quagmire

Pretty much every hockey pundit had assured us that this season would mark the renaissance of the Hudson River rivalry, and on paper, both the New York Rangers and the New Jersey Devils came out of the summer as big victors.

Both teams’ biggest offseason moves were made as if motivated by some epic arms race. The Rangers lured over superstar playmaker winger Artemi Panarin in free agency seemingly as an answer to Devils 2017-18 league MVP winger Taylor Hall, but New Jersey responded by trading for fellow Russian winger Nikita Gusev, who, like Panarin, tore up Russia’s KHL with SKA St. Petersburg before making the move to North America. Less than a week after the Rangers pretty much stole 50-point defenseman Jacob Trouba from the Winnipeg Jets, the Devils acquired their own disgruntled elite right-handed blueliner, the electrifying P.K. Subban, from the Nashville Predators—also for pennies on the dollar. And the kicker? Both teams were also the biggest winners at the NHL draft lottery, giving the Devils the chance to pick American phenom Jack Hughes at No. 1 and the Rangers the chance to take Finnish wunderkind Kaapo Kakko with the second choice.

After an additional slew of cheap depth signings and call-ups, it was all but official that the rebuild stage for these two teams was no more. With the much more competitive rosters came much higher expectations from both fans and the pending unrestricted free agents such as Hall and New York’s speedy winger Chris Kreider, whose futures at their respective clubs are still uncertain.

Fast forward to a month into the 2019-20 season, though, and many hands are already circling the panic button. The Rangers and Devils occupy the last two spots in the stacked Metropolitan Division, and though their extremely unusual schedules have not allowed them to play as many games as other teams in the league, there’s already a sentiment within both fanbases that this is yet another wasted year. While there is still a lot of hockey yet to be played, here are some issues that have plagued the Rangers and Devils through their first dozen games.

NEW YORK RANGERS

One word: inconsistency.

That seems to be the ultimate side effect for a Rangers squad suffering from peculiar lineup management decisions, chemistry issues, and obvious inexperience. With only half of the Rangers roster staying on the team from last year and the lowest average age in the league (25.3), there realistically wasn’t much to expect from this group in the first place, even with a bolstered roster from the offseason (though Rangers diehards would like you to believe that they’re playoff bound).

Despite all the shiny additions, the Rangers’ forward group still lacks a lot of depth, especially the center lane. Yes, Mika Zibanejad is gradually revealing himself as a bonafide No. 1 center, and ever since he got injured, Ryan Strome has contributed rather nicely as his replacement. But Strome will eventually come back down to earth with his scoring, and the lack of experience in the Rangers bottom two center slots will become the prime focus. And though it’s not to say that ice time should be stolen from younger players, it would benefit the team greatly to have a more formidable one-two punch up the middle. Think the 2016-17 Toronto Maple Leafs, who were in the same place as the Rangers before this season, coming off a stinker of a campaign but returning with a slew of exciting youth. The Leafs entered that year with a solid triumvirate of elite talent Auston Matthews, hard-nosed goal-scorer Nazem Kadri, and reliable veteran Tyler Bozak down the middle, and they ended up making the postseason. The Rangers have the talented wingers, their number one scoring defenseman, and great goaltending, but they just aren’t strong enough at center to repeat the Leafs’ feat.

Winning their first two games of the year only distracted from issues like this. Their 6-4 game against the Jets, while thrilling, didn’t particularly constitute a good performance; the Rangers gave up multiple leads in quick succession and allowed a whopping 47 shots on net (no other team allows more average shots per game [35.9]). And their 4-1 performance against the last-place Ottawa Senators was pretty much as expected. As soon as Zibanejad’s eight points in those two games were no longer something the Rangers could rely on, they started losing, and the focus returned on the shooting galleries and defensive ineptitudes, various examples of mishandling their rookies, the overuse of bottom line skaters in inappropriate situations, and the team’s general struggle to find a grip on games. One game, the team can look like a puck-moving machine, while the next, they’re a defensive nightmare and can’t stay out of the penalty box.

That is what brings us to their 5-6-1 record through the first dozen. It’s difficult to decipher what this team is at this point, and it’s likely they don’t know their own game enough. One thing is becoming clearer, though, and it’s that this team is not ready—yet. They need to build character. They need games against contenders like the Boston Bruins in which they’ll get their teeth kicked in, but they also need that occasional gutsy shootout win. And now that their young, talented core of the future is set, they have to keep the mindset that it’s all up from here, especially if they can find and keep a system that works.

NEW JERSEY DEVILS

One blown lead, two blown leads, three blown leads, four. How many more can Devils fans take?

The inability to close out games on home soil has played a large role in the Devils carrying the worst record in the Metropolitan (3-5-4) a month into the new campaign. They had started off their season with a shambolic 0-4-2 before ironically defeating a Rangers team still rusty off playing only three games in two weeks.

It’s no secret that the Devils’ goaltending tandem of Cory Schneider and Mackenzie Blackwood is their Achilles heel, and though their play has been decent in blotches, it just hasn't been good enough to give them a chance to win on a game-to-game basis. With both sitting on a sub 0.880 save percentage and the de facto starter Schneider fielding a horrendous 4.71 goals-against-average, neither netminder lands in the league’s top 31 in either category. The Devils desperately need at the very least league average goaltending to secure them some games, especially considering that they allow the second least shots per game in the league (28.5).

Despite that pleasant metric, the Devils defense has been nowhere near perfect, as shown by their inefficiency in keeping pucks out of the net. On countless instances, the Devils have been guilty of clumsily leaving wide-open gaps in their neutral and defensive zones, allowing opposing players to just walk in and shoot on a screened goaltender. Their style of collapsing right in front of the net on rushes has given offensively talented opponents like the Winnipeg Jets and Florida Panthers enough fuel to stage their monumental comebacks.

Though there has been no shortage of criticism for head coach John Hynes for putting little emphasis on good counterattack defense, the fact that the team needs him to motivate them to not give up multi-goal leads with half a game left suggests that the Devils need better leadership from within. Sure, being rotated through several different line combinations a game by Hynes doesn’t help the team’s chemistry moving forward either, but there absolutely needs to be somebody who will take the charge from the front, whether that be an MVP-caliber Hall, a tenacious sniper like Kyle Palmieri, or a long-tenured stalwart like Travis Zajac.

Giving up on the season now just because of a few disappointing games completely undermines the talent level of the Devils’ roster, and overhauling the team’s identity by getting rid of Hynes is most likely not the best solution to the team’s woes. Rather, by being more patient with less experienced players (like Hughes and Gusev) and establishing a clear blueprint for the share of responsibilities on the team, the Devils can play more cohesive hockey that maximizes the whole group’s potential.