For the first time since the 2016-17 season, the New York Rangers have clinched a playoff spot.
The Rangers are currently tied for first place in the Metro with Carolina, but the Hurricanes have one game in hand and the tiebreaker with one more regulation win.
The Rangers and Hurricanes play on Tuesday and on 4/26.
The Rangers are currently slated to face the Penguins in the first round, but would likely face either Tampa Bay or Boston if they win the division.
The Rangers who have playoff experience, excluding the Carolina series in the bubble, include: Artemi Panarin (27 games), Chris Kreider (78 games), Mika Zibaneajd (28 games), Ryan Strome (15 games), Jacob Trouba (27 games), Barclay Goodrow (65 games), Ryan Reaves (84 games), Andrew Copp (34 games), Frank Vatrano 14 games), Greg McKegg (15 games), Patrik Nemeth (28 games), Justin Braun (100 games), Tyler Motte (17 games).
The only active Ranger that has won a Stanley Cup is Barclay Goodrow. Sammy Blais won the Stanley Cup with St. Louis, but he is unlikely to return before next season.
Gerard Gallant has been head coach for 33 playoff games, over three seasons, in his career. He has twice lost in the first round, but led Vegas to the Stanley Cup Final in 2017-18 before losing to the Capitals.
Adam Rotter: I certainly thought that the playoffs were possible, if not probable for this season, but I always thought they would be battling for third place or a Wild Card and not second place or the Division title. I was critical of this team for most of this season for winning most games by finding a way, but they’ve shown over the past month or so that they are not only deserving of this playoff spot, but deserving of their record and place in the standings. I don’t think they are perfect, but they’ve been very good for most of this season.
The Rangers were carried through this regular season on the back of Igor Shesterkin, an out-of-this-world season from Chris Kreider and, despite some mini-slumps at times, the kind of years you expect from Mika Zibanejad, Artemi Panarin, and Adam Fox. Jacob Trouba became the player the Rangers thought they were acquiring three-years ago and K’Andre Miller has taken multiple big steps offensively and defensively/physically to become a force. Andrew Copp has been an almost perfect fit since being acquired and Ryan Strome just continues to be solid. Barclay Goodrow played his role nearly perfectly in any spot he was asked to play, Ryan Reaves has had his moments, but his biggest impact may have been in the locker room. Alexis Lafreniere continues to develop and Kaapo Kakko missed about half the season, but will hopefully make his mark in the playoffs.
While the Rangers as a team would struggle to play 60-minute games, the power play was able to compensate, score big goals and win a lot of games. It also helped the Rangers that both the Islanders, even though they’ve been better as of late, and the Flyers had terrible seasons and basically allowed the top-four teams in the Metro to separate early and never feel much pressure.
Gerard Gallant deserves a lot of credit and while I don’t think he will win, and possibly won’t get nominated for the Jack Adams, he should get a lot of votes. I think that the Rangers still could have been a playoff team this season under David Quinn, but Gallant tapped into something with this group that I’m not sure Quinn would have or could have. Gallant always focused on the positive and you can truly count on one hand the amount of times he was publicly critical after games. The players responded to what seemed like Gallant’s philosophy that winning was all that mattered and that it could be ugly, finding a way, because of the power play or goaltending. Systems didn’t seem to matter much, wins mattered and they responded to that kind of freedom with a lot of wins.
This will be the first real playoff experience, outside of the three-game sweep by Carolina in the bubble, for all of the young Rangers. Most of the rest of the team has played in at least a series or two, though Kreider and Zibanejad are the only ones still left that have played playoff games for the Rangers. Igor Shesterkin has won KHL championships, but he too will get his first experience in the Stanley Cup playoffs. We’ll see where it goes. They have the goalie that can equalize all other factors and we’ll see what impact, if any, their youth and inexperience with certain players and as an overall team, has against more veteran teams that carry large chunks of the same roster into the playoffs from year-to-year. It’s tough to set expectations until we know their opponent in the first round and see what their potential path will be, but no matter what, the Rangers are back in the playoffs. Hopefully, this is just the start of another incredible run of playoff years like we saw from 2005-06, minus 2009-10, to when they decided to tear it all down in 2018.