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Are the Rangers’ unimpressive metrics a bad omen for the playoffs?



Please keep underestimating us. Please keep putting out articles like this that Lavi can use as motivation.

by JBS319

34 Comments

  1. NoReplacement9001

    Unimpressive to who?! Because I’m so impressed! I love this team!

  2. Anyawnomous

    I love this team. Will be disappointed if we don’t get the President’s Cup. Playoffs are a whole new season. Let’s finish strong and get Stanley too! LGR!

  3. JaqenHghar

    No, fuck off! We come from behind or we take the lead and hold. PP is stellar and PK is stellar. Goalie tandem stellar.

    Boys are having fun! Stellar!

  4. Teknicsrx7

    Right off the bat:

    “Artemi Panarin has scored 61% of his points on the man advantage”

    He has 115 points, 42 PPP that’s 36%. Which is roughly the same (all are 33-37% I think) as McDavid, Kuch, and MacK. Way to go stats guys

  5. Key-Tip-7521

    Another article Lav puts on the wall for motivation

  6. vintage2x

    This is not underestimating. It’s literally estimating based on statistics. Based on the stats we are great in special teams and goaltending. We are not good 5v5. I’m sure that Lav is well aware.

    Based on this data, if we don’t do well on power play and goaltending, we will not do well in the playoffs.

  7. Ill_Sympathy948

    this is literally (and i know that’s an overused term, but i mean it) the second time ESPN has run a story about how the Rangers’ success could not “be for real” this season. I don’t know if it’s cause it’s written by a notorious jersey piss baby or what, but it’s a real hack take. Not to mention the article ends with the “experts” shrugging and saying any team can get hot at the right time and the Rangers have just as good a chance as anyone.

  8. Redeem_Deez

    Wyshynski is a noted Devils fan and Jersey native. Really wouldn’t bother to give him or ESPN a click.

  9. jkman61494

    I don’t know where you can say this analytics wise, but the concern I have for them is the fact that they do give up the first goal or blow leads way too frequently to feel comfortable.

    Since beating the Blues 4-0 on March 9th, the Rangers have scored first just a handful of times and/or blew a lead in every game.

    Yet they’ve only lost twice.

    That’s not really sustainable in the playoffs. This team needs to learn how to score first and hold a lead. You can’t expect to keep coming back down from 1-2 goals every night

  10. Cute-Escape2751

    Wyshynski comes across as a very bitter Devils fan. I get it though, their season has sucked.

  11. NatalChaos

    This was put together by Greg Wyshynski, a huge Debbies fan and Rangers hater. The same guy that contributes to the NHL power rankings for ESPN. The same rankings that had us 2nd last week and has refused to put us 1st for most of the season, even though we’ve been first in the league or damn near it for awhile. I don’t have a problem with advanced stats, but it’s so easy to cherry pick things to make a team look better or worse than they are.

  12. infinitebest

    I didn’t think the article was biased or unfair as others are proclaiming. They pretty much just laid out a few cases and showed some data. Even a comparison chart of how this team stacks up against past cup champs in various categories. It’s not like they said the Rangers suck, and there were many positives and interesting upside mentioned.

  13. fantobens

    It’s Greg. The fact that he has a job that isn’t for the devils is beyond me.

  14. PrimeVector19

    The Rangers haven’t been all that good at 5-on-5 for a very long time, and it hasn’t stopped them from making deep playoff runs.

  15. worldof777

    The only real concerns with the team at 5v5 rn is the 1 (elite) good offensive line and inconsistent top 4 D. However, the 3rd line seems to be a true matchup potential.

  16. ayykitten

    I swear, the Rangers live so rent free in Greg Wyshynski’s head. He’s a noted Devils homer, yet always talks about the Rangers and how bad of a team they are.

  17. BillyFever

    I think that advanced statistics are on the whole a good thing that can help people understand a sport better, help GMs and coaches make their decisions with more intellectual rigor, and for some fans making following the sport more fun. But man there are some fucking nerds out there who can’t seem to accept that sports happen in real life, not in statistical simulations, and that “the statistics indicate that *on average* teams with the Rangers’ 5v5 numbers are less likely to win the Stanley Cup than teams with more dominant 5v5 numbers” **does not** mean that the Rangers are overrated or would be “lucky” to win the Cup.

  18. ExperienceNo7751

    New York Hate gets clicks. It makes all the winning 1000x sweeter.

  19. The article is pretty good (albeit there’s a bunch of typos). Idk why people keep claiming this is some kind of Wysh biased Devils fan article considering if you read the first 2 sentences you’d see it was a joint effort with like 5 different analytics people (public and private model) who are not biased Devils fans. Also even if Wysh is a biased Devils fan it doesn’t invalidate the basic numbers that the article is pointing out

    It’s the same story for NYR as it has been for years, across multiple rosters and coaches: they’re great at special teams and goaltending, and totally mediocre at 5v5, where 80-85% of every game is played. NYR not being good at 5v5 is definitely an Achilles heel to their cup run. Teams that are not good at 5v5 almost never win cups.

    But as Meghan Chayka pointed out in the article, guys like Roslovic (who is good) and Wennberg have helped increase NYR’s possession time by almost a full minute. If those guys can continue to be on the right side of the puck (albeit they have to cut down their xGAs) then that will be a big boost. Hell, the article even praises the Rangers for their timely 5v5 scoring and uses that to explain how they’ve basically beaten the expected stats. A very substantial portion of the article was praising the Rangers and basically explaining that what NYR is doing could actually be sustainable for a cup run — did anybody here criticizing it even read it?

    The concerns about subpar 5v5 play are legitimate and have to be addressed, otherwise it has a good chance of being an issue in the playoffs. To pretend they’re not actually mediocre at 5v5, with only 1 line scoring at 5v5, and that this is just some kind of Rangers hate article, is totally ridiculous and idk how people can believe that with a straight face. Do you genuinely believe that a full grown adult sports journalist for ESPN would be so childish to write an article that is just full of wrong information and is only written out of a hatred for the team that it’s about?

    My goodness it’s laughable how anything even remotely agreeing with the article is getting down voted here. I forgot that acknowledging basic reality in this sub is illegal and you’re only allowed to say that the Rangers are the best team of all time and any pointing out of any bad things at all will result in public execution

  20. En_Attendant_Godot

    I hate the number crunching freaks. Beancounters need to get the hell out of my sports

  21. JayemmbeeEsq

    I love Wysh on everything but the Rangers. The Devils fan bias is real.

  22. Oprama2016

    I don’t know shit about analytics, but if this is an unimpressive season I must be fucking blind. 

  23. Monfett33

    If your ignoring the graph sheet where it shows there’s only been one cup winner with – 5V5 play then your just coping. This team will get swept by the canes 2nd round if they can’t adapt

  24. I love Wysh from the puckdaddy and MvsW days. He’s not wrong, Rangers are especially this year but have been historically a team that outperforms it’s metrics. We’ll see how it goes but the 1st half of the article was insightful.

    As an aside anyone else hate reading articles in the ESPN app? Such a garbage tool for a multi billion dollar company.

  25. Dapper-Standard9820

    TLDR: if the doomers on our sub say it’s a problem, then it’s not a problem. If they say it isn’t a problem, then it is a problem.

  26. >”What gets them to the 115 points they’re projected for now is a combination of finishing and goaltending, which has been consistent throughout the season,” Fraser said. “[Igor Shesterkin](https://www.espn.com/nhl/player/_/id/3151297/igor-shesterkin) has been fine. But most notably, they’ve gotten excellent performance from a backup for the first time in years.”

  27. Musicguy182

    Obviously we need to be a little cautious because anything can happen in the playoffs but I feel like we are better positioned this year

  28. Skwaasher

    This is (and always has been) a fear of mine, in ALL sports. A hot team in the playoffs can “upset the applecart”, and that is a frequent occurrence, unfortunately.

    All we can hope for is we keep playing the way we’ve been playing, don’t get out of our gameplan and adjust quickly when necessary.

    We have a good team, potentially a GREAT team. Lets just work for the big “16 win playoff season.” and hoist the cup!!

  29. GoldServe2446

    You can be subpar 5 on 5 if the special teams are very good and the goalie is elite.

  30. DeathByZamboni_US

    Honestly the article I pretty fair and balanced. The headline is there to generate clicks. BUT the ending is hilarious. Yes the Canes are good but we own those guys. Can these analytics guys just stop blindly trusting their models and watch the games?

  31. DrAnklePumps

    I don’t know why it has to be said but hockey is played on a sheet of ice and not a spreadsheet. The only number that matters is in the win column. Advanced analytics has very little value and this article was a great example of that.

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