Colin Stephenson: Moving Gabe Perreault to Rangers' top-power play unit is right move
Rangers right wing Gabe Perreault sets before a face-off against the Utah Mammoth in the first period of an NHL game at Madison Square Garden on Oct. 4. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
Mike Sullivan and his staff came into training camp with a plan. They mapped out who should be on the team on opening night, and who they thought should play with who. And they stuck with that plan for a time, which was easy to do when things were going well early on.
But eventually, things changed. Goalie Igor Shesterkin, the Rangers’ best player, was lost for the season in Game 6. And within a few games, the team’s play started to deteriorate, and results followed suit.
And so, Sullivan has had to make some modifications to the plan. He tweaked his forward lines, and an undisclosed injury to defenseman Sean Durzi has forced a change in the makeup of the defense this week, too.
But the small changes haven’t done enough, as evidenced by the four-game losing streak and 1-5-1 skid the Rangers were on entering Tuesday’s home game against former Ranger Pavel Buchnevich and the St. Louis Blues. So for Tuesday, Sullivan made a few, more substantial changes, the most significant of which was to drop his captain, J.T. Miller, from the first power-play unit, and replace him with second-year player Gabe Perreault.
“I felt like we've been patient with that first group for a long time, trying to get it to work,” Sullivan said at Monday’s practice. “And my college coach, Jack Parker, always used to say, when you're putting power play groups together, it probably makes a lot of sense to start with what you deem the five best players, and then go from there.”
So, in elevating the 21-year-old Perreault to the top unit, it sounds like Sullivan is deeming him one of the Rangers’ five best players, bumping Miller from that group.
The scoring stats don’t say that – Miller was fourth on the team in scoring entering Tuesday, tied with linemate Tye Kartye (who was added to the second power-play unit Tuesday) on 10 points. Perreault was tied for eighth (with Oliver Bjorkstrand) with seven points.
But it’s not always about points. Miller and Perreault – who are actually now linemates at even strength, along with Kartye – are different players, with different styles. Miller is a gritty, two-way player who operates in the low ice, and plays with physicality and emotion; Perreault is a slick passer who makes cerebral plays from the perimeter to set teammates up for scoring opportunities.
Right now, Sullivan apparently feels like the Rangers’ top power play unit needs more of what Perreault can give.
Even Miller understands something had to change.
“Way below our standard, I think, so far,” Miller said Monday of the Ranger’s power play, which entered Tuesday’s game tied for 18th in the league with a success rate of 20% (8-for-40). “I even think when we were scoring goals at the beginning of the [season], we were opportunistic. Sometimes it feels good, whether you score or not. Sometimes it doesn't. At some point, you’ve got to do a little shakeup, and I'm sure, typically when we do that, we'll get some juice and kind of go from there.”
Perreault, asked on Tuesday what he hoped to be able to contribute to the top power play unit, said he was “just going out there and trying to make everyone around me better. Obviously, if we can get the power play going, I think it'll help us score some goals, and obviously that'll help with the winning.”
One of the changes Sullivan had made earlier in the week was to move Perreault off the top line, with Mika Zibanejad and Alexis Lafreniere, dropping him to the third line, with Will Cuylle and Noah Laba for Sunday’s game against Edmonton. But with the Rangers falling behind, 3-0, on the way to an eventual 4-1 loss in that game, Sullivan moved Perreault back up to the second line, with Miller and Kartye, as he tried to help the Rangers come back.
“I think Gabe's a versatile player,’’ Sullivan said. “I do think we can move him around our top nine [forwards], depending on what our group looks like, and who's playing well, or what we're trying to do with some of the other guys. For example, one of the things we wanted to do was, we wanted to try Pav [Pavel Dorofeyev] with Mika and Laf. Well, that means Gabe has to come off the line if we're going to try that, right?
“So now the question is: ‘Okay, what's the best spot for him, for both him [individually] and our group – in particular our top nine – that gives us complementary skill sets so that we can create the balance we're looking for and set the players up for success?’”
The best spot for a creative player like Perreault would be with the top players on the roster. A player like him needs to play with higher end skill players, who have the ability to think along with him, and get to open spaces where his passes can find them. The top power-play unit seems like a logical spot.
Colin Stephenson covers the Rangers for Newsday. He has spent more than two decades covering the NHL and just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.
