It started with an awkward fall. Now, the New York Rangers will have to embark on a crucial part of their season without their No. 1 defenseman.
Adam Fox was placed on injured reserve Wednesday with an upper-body injury, following a hooking penalty against Kyle MacLean that concluded with Fox’s left shoulder hitting the ice. Fox immediately favored his shoulder and collarbone area and went to the locker room.
It isn’t a stretch to call this a catastrophic blow to the Rangers, who enter the stretch drive of the season two points out of a playoff spot, and third in the Wild Card. Fox has led New York in time on ice, averaging 23:14 per game. He’s tied for fourth in league-defenseman scoring with 48 points — not bad for a group that includes Cale Makar and Quinn Hughes. He quarterbacks the club’s top power-play unit.
The Rangers expect Fox to return before the end of the season, but if he is to be of any help at that point, the club will have to tread water without him.
How Fox’s injury will impact the Rangers’ D corps
The Rangers practiced Thursday with modified lines and defense pairings. K’Andre Miller, who also left Tuesday’s game early, skated in a non-contact jersey, according to Mollie Walker of the New York Post. Miller took reps with Will Borgen, Ryan Lindgren skated with Urho Vaakanainen, and Zac Jones was paired with Braden Schneider.
Matthew Robertson was recalled from the AHL’s Hartford Wolf Pack in a corresponding move.
“We know each other’s games well,” Schneider said about playing with Jones. “We communicate well out there, so full confidence and looking forward to it.”
But Fox’s extended absence undoubtedly leaves a void in the lineup — one that the Rangers’ healthy defensemen will have to step up to fill.
“He’s an impossible hole to fill for us,” Schneider added. “He’s a big-time player, and I think the mentality is just making sure that sticking to our details, we’re executing our game plan and I think for us as defenseman is making sure that we have that defense-first mindset and take what we get offensively.”
“You never want to see anyone go down,” Lindgren said. “With Foxy, he means so much to this team. It’s a guy that’s irreplaceable, but we need guys to step up in his absence, and we know we got the guys that can do that. Just got to make sure we’re helping each other out out there.”
The 5-forward power play
Fox’s spot as the Rangers’ top power-play anchor went unfilled by a defenseman at Thursday’s skate. With J.T. Miller missing practice due to an illness, the Rangers skated with a five-forward power play unit of Mika Zibanejad, Artemi Panarin, Chris Kreider, Vincent Trocheck and Alexis Lafrenière, per Walker.
A five-forward power play is, of course, a rarity in today’s game. The Toronto Maple Leafs have operated with one this season when they moved Morgan Reilly to the second unit. In general, teams have shown that the most common optimal power-play combination is four forwards, plus a puck-moving defenseman at the point. The forward roles vary, depending on the makeup of a team or a coach’s system, but many units use left and right flanks, a bumper in the middle, and net-front presence down low.
With Fox out, the Rangers have opted to load up their power play, which ranks 19th in the NHL with a 21.1% conversion rate, with offensive firepower. Two defensemen, Miller and Jones, skated on the second unit.
Zibanejad said that operating with five forwards gives the power play more flexibility, mentioning specifically the anchor position.
“In a way, when you’re five forwards, you can interchange even more,” he said. “With Laffy going up there, or whoever, like Bread going up there. It doesn’t really matter who goes up top.”
Head coach Peter Laviolette did not confirm whether he was planning on using a five-forward unit in a game and said the club was “just getting to look at it” in practice.
“It’s not something that you see every day, no, but it does happen,” said Laviolette. “If it did go that way, don’t know that we are or we aren’t, but if it did go that way, I feel like Mika is somebody who can read positions and read that spot and be able to manage that.”
Playoff implications
The Rangers will need to catch either the Columbus Blue Jackets or the Detroit Red Wings to squeak into the playoffs.
The Ottawa Senators fell to the Winnipeg Jets on Wednesday, meaning that the Rangers now sit one spot below the playoff threshold. New York and Ottawa have identical records of 29–25–4 and both have 62 points.
The Rangers are 2–0 against the Senators this season, meaning that they hold the tiebreaker. The two teams are set to meet for the final time this season on March 8 in Ottawa.
The Boston Bruins also have 62 points but have played one more game and have two fewer wins than the Rangers and Senators. Below them, the Montreal Canadiens, Philadelphia Flyers, and New York Islanders are all conceivably still in the race.
Each club is dealing with injuries. Only the Rangers and the Bruins are missing their top defenseman.
The other challenge for the Rangers is their remaining schedule, which, according to Tankathon and Power Rankings Guru, is one of the top four hardest in the league. The Rangers’ road to the playoffs runs through the Winnipeg Jets, Washington Capitals, Maple Leafs (twice) and Edmonton Oilers.
If there was a time for the club’s top players and its shaky defense to lock in, it’s now.
“We should embrace the challenge,” Zibanejad said. “We should enjoy it. Obviously, playoffs start after April 17, but these type of games are playoff games for us, and that’s the type of games we want to play.”
