00:00Nearly five weeks, five shutout losses, and what, eight games later?
00:04The Rangers got their first home win of the season, but did that start a revolution?
00:09Let's talk some Rangers hockey with Johnny Lazarus, who's on the Rangers' beat and the host of the Hockey News.
00:16Johnny, I see you laugh when it came to the revolution, man.
00:18It got the first one. Who knows?
00:20They're a completely different team with Vincent Trocek on this team.
00:25He's back from IR after missing the first 14 games.
00:28Is this a playoff-caliber team with Trocek in the lineup?
00:33I've been saying since day one, Brandon, that they're a first-round exit.
00:37There's no doubt that this is a playoff team.
00:40I mean, especially with the top six of Perel, Miller, Zibanejad, and then Lafreniere, Panarin, and Trocek.
00:46Obviously, that gives the team way more balance, and then you can actually move down players like Will Cooley, Connor Sherry, who we've seen in the top six.
00:53And granted, those are solid NHL players, or at least in Cooley's favor, scored 20 goals last year.
01:00But when you put pressure on guys who are middle six forwards to produce and play those top six events, it just creates this imbalance of structure with the team.
01:09So to have Trocek and Perrault call back up for his first game of the year certainly helped, again, I'll use that word, balance for this roster.
01:18But Vinny Trocek specifically, having him back, you can just see how important he is to this group, not only in the locker room to be that voice of leadership and a guy who can settle things down,
01:28but just his pestiness, his ability to drag guys in, he's, you know, battling with Michael McCarron, who's like a foot taller than him right from the opening faceoff.
01:39He's cashing in with two assists, could have had three.
01:42Panarin's second goal, I think Vinny makes that play happen on the four check.
01:44He doesn't get credited with it, but he easily could have had three assists.
01:47He wins faceoffs.
01:48He gets to the dirty areas.
01:50He touches every single aspect of the game, and that's why Peter Laviolette loved him so much.
01:53He had Trocek killing penalties, playing power play, five on six, six on five.
01:58Like, he really does everything, and he got a sense of that last night.
02:01And the Rangers offensively didn't generate as much as they actually have in previous games,
02:07but it's one of those weird things where they're just, it's almost like contagious when you see one puck go in,
02:13Mika Zemanjad scoring the opening goal off a great deceptive feed from Adam Fox.
02:17The confidence just right from there, it grows and grows and grows,
02:21and the Rangers felt it as that game continued to go on last night.
02:23That snowball effect, and I just love the energy that a Vincent Trocek brings.
02:29And I'm not saying that because he's my favorite player on the team,
02:32but being like that Draymond Green type guy to what he is for the Warriors,
02:41But you mentioned Gabe Perot made his season debut.
02:44I mean, he's another guy that came in, made an instant impact, got his first NHL point off the assist on Laffey's power play goal.
02:54I like to say, don't introduce me to a vibe that you can't maintain.
02:59So how or where does he fit in with this team, and how does Mike Sullivan get the most out of him night in, night out for the rest of the season?
03:07I think Mike Sullivan did a great job protecting Gabe Perot last night.
03:12He played 14 minutes, so didn't play too much.
03:14There were some shifts in the first period.
03:16There was one in particular where Gabe actually had two turnovers in the D-zone,
03:20which turned into, you know, 45 seconds to a minute of sustained offense for Nashville.
03:24And after Nashville actually tied the game at 1-1 on the power play, Gabe sat a shift.
03:30Mike Sullivan sent out Panarin with Miller and Zibanejad, where typically Gabe Perot would be on that line.
03:35But after a goal is scored against you, you know, that first shift after you're scored on is a big response.
03:41So you need guys that are responsible, that can generate offense.
03:44And to throw Gabe out in that spot, you know, would have been a challenge for him.
03:48So I like the fact that Sullivan did sit him, let him take a deep breath after the team just got scored on.
03:53And you don't put pressure on a kid right away.
03:55So I thought Sullivan did a great job with that.
03:57Again, he only played 14 minutes last night, so it's not like he, you know, played a ton.
04:01But in those 14 minutes, he hit the post.
04:02He had a great scoring chance.
04:03He obviously has the assist to Lafreniere, like you mentioned.
04:06But Gabe is a very calm and composed player that can create off the rush.
04:10He's great below the tops of the circles in the offensive zone.
04:13And when he has an open look, for the most part, he'll bury it.
04:16He scored a lot of goals in the preseason.
04:18So he's shown he can score.
04:21He was lighting it up in the NHL before his call-up.
04:23And I think with time, again, he only played five games before in the NHL until last night.
04:28So with time, he'll get more acclimated.
04:30He'll adjust a little bit.
04:31And the game will slow down for him.
04:33You know, his speed has been one thing that he's been knocked for.
04:36So adjusting to the pace of the NHL is probably going to be the biggest transition for him.
04:40But after the next, like, 10, 15, 20 games, you'll start to see that he'll be thinking the game one step ahead, just like he did at Boston College for the past couple seasons.
04:48I'm going to call this next part the last take.
04:51The last take.
04:52Okay.
04:52Because I lean on you to take me into the hockey world.
04:55You know, I was a former football player.
04:56You're the hockey guy.
04:57So I love to talk about what the players are talking about in the locker room.
05:01What was the difference, I guess, team-wise in that win over the last seven home losses?
05:07And do you feel like that win and that performance could be the start of a real turnaround or some sort of run?
05:16Yeah, this is what I asked Mike Sullivan last night after the game.
05:19And I actually had a great conversation with Stephen Stamkos of the National Predators, who's obviously a very well-informed, well-spoken NHL veteran.
05:27And Stamkos, you know, I asked him, like, what he made of the Rangers' struggles at home because he's a guy who, you know, is a notable goal scorer in the NHL.
05:34He's been around for a long time, and it just doesn't seem to make sense why this team is struggling to score at home.
05:39And he said it was just a blip.
05:40Like, at some point, it's going to break through.
05:42This can't be sustainable, right?
05:44This team is too talented for things to continue this way.
05:47And I'm sure he didn't want it to happen against his own team.
05:49But last night, you just saw why hockey can be so weird at times because the Rangers only generated six high-danger chances.
05:56And they've been generating, you know, closer to 9-10 per game.
05:59They're the fifth-best team in the NHL when it comes to generating high-danger chances.
06:03So, last night, offensively, it wasn't actually their best performance.
06:07But, like Mike Sullivan said, if they continue to trust this process and stick to doing the right things they've been doing,
06:12eventually the pucks are going to go in.
06:15So, Mika Zabanjad gets a breakaway last night in the first period.
06:18He makes a great move, granted, but they scored the first goal, and the confidence goes from there.
06:22That was only the second time in eight games the Rangers had scored the first goal at home.
06:26Obviously, they've been shut out in five of them, so it's impossible to score the first goal when you're shut out.
06:30But when you get the first goal, it also just gets the bench a little bit, you know, more uplifted.
06:35So, that was big for them.
06:37But, you know, back to Sullivan's point of just trusting that they're playing the right way
06:41and feeling good about their game, at some point it has to break through.
06:44And I thought both of Panarin's goals last night, you know, those are pucks that typically don't go in on an NHL goaltender.
06:50But when, you know, things are going the right way, that's just kind of how the game goes, right?
06:54So, the vibes are still high on this team.
06:57You know, I think it has to be a little bit more consistent at home.
07:01Obviously, they played against a Nashville Predators team that was coming into the game on a four-game losing streak.
07:06Nashville's struggled so far out of the gates.
07:08You'd like to see the Rangers maybe get two or three in a row at home, and then you feel really good.
07:13But right now, people can, yeah, they can be confident that this is a playoff team.
07:16But I think there's still question marks on if they're going to be a contender.
07:23Because I would not consider them to be a team right now that is down for the Eastern Conference Final.
07:28Like, I still think they're a first-round exit.
07:31But, again, we're still very early in the season.
07:33And, you know, you never know what players that could be added, you know, come deadline time or whatnot
07:37and what guys can turn it around.
07:39So, at least fans can have, you know, fun watching them play.
07:43I think that's the most important thing.
07:44Because last year, I don't think there was any of that.
07:46Well, it was fun looking at that exposed brick in the background.
07:49I love the feng shui of the new setup.
07:52The moving boxes are showing, too, on the camera.
07:54I got to put this room together a little bit today.
07:56All right, man.
07:57Well, I appreciate you hopping on with me, my guy.
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