The word to describe it, according to Chris Kreider, would be process. For the past five months, 62 games and 195 man-advantage opportunities, that’s exactly what the Rangers’ power play has piloted.
There have been the scoring bursts. Some progress.
There have been the droughts. Some setbacks.
The ebb and flow of the power play — buzzing at times, nonexistent at others — resembled the ebb and flow of an NHL season, and that makes the Blueshirts’ trends since Jan. 22 fitting.
An 0-for-18 slump turned into a 4-for-9 tear — with the Rangers’ conversions in a Stadium Series win serving as the centerpiece — that turned into a 2-for-22 slump.
But in their 4-2 loss to the Panthers on Monday, the Blueshirts pieced together another mini-surge, creating both goals on the power play and teasing, again, that maybe they can rediscover their longtime strength.
“I think our process was better … and we were able to cash in on a couple of opportunities,” Kreider said Monday. “But yeah, I think that mentality of kind of moving the puck, releasing the pressure, releasing the pressure and then attacking the net, just kind of getting in that flow, it’s what made us successful. It’s what will continue to make us successful.”
This time, there was a blend of old and new contributing to those units.
Rookie Will Cuylle provided the Rangers’ first tally, with less than four minutes remaining in the first period, when Sergei Bobrovsky couldn’t smother Jacob Trouba’s blast from the point and Cuylle tucked the rebound around the goaltender.
It was Cuylle’s first power-play goal.
He’s had just 17 minutes of power-play ice time all season — though not on one of the Blueshirts’ set man-advantage lines — and on that shift against the Panthers, Barclay Goodrow and Jimmy Vesey, and all of their 20.8 minutes of combined ice time with those units in 2023-24, were his linemates for 53 seconds with the man-advantage.
When the Rangers converted again, Kreider collected a rebound that squeaked free and curled around Bobrovsky — whose stick slid toward the boards — before anyone could poke the puck away.
It marked the 104th power play of Kreider’s career — the fourth-most in franchise history behind just Camille Henry (116), Rod Gilbert (108) and Brian Leetch (106).
It was his 46th tally with the man-advantage since 2021-22, too, a threshold only the Oilers’ Leon Draisaitl and the Panthers’ Sam Reinhart have topped across that span.
Kreider has served as a link to the dominant power-play units of past Rangers teams, an important piece to any solution that line tinkering and structural adjusting sometimes can’t solve.
In the drought ahead of the Stadium Series, head coach Peter Laviolette tried altering his lines by shifting Blake Wheeler, now out for the season, and Jonny Brodzinski to the top group.
Artemi Panarin and Vincent Trocheck dropped to the second unit.
But by the time Trocheck, twice, and Kreider scored against the Islanders, the Blueshirts’ power-play units had resorted to their normal combinations.
To what worked before. To the root of why they were one of the NHL’s top man-advantage teams to start the 2023-24 campaign, a success rate keeping them afloat as the No. 6 power play (25.1 percent) amid recent struggles.
The key to the Rangers unlocking that unit might not arrive at the trade deadline, either.
It’s not like last year, when the addition of Patrick Kane provided a clear-cut, obvious addition for the top unit, and Vladimir Tarasenko provided a clear-cut, obvious addition for the second unit — with the skill set to slide up a line if needed.
Maybe some addition would prompt some reshuffling, or maybe Laviolette would just hope that everything clicks for the Rangers’ power-play lines like it did earlier this year.
Like it did in the past.
Because for all of the empty two-minute windows and mixed results since the calendar flipped to 2024, and for all of the days and weeks when those empty two-minute windows and mixed results stacked together, there are nights like Monday— when the Rangers make it look like they have everything figured out.
“Seems like that power play’s gonna be big, PK’s gonna be big, so gotta make sure that we’re capitalizing,” Trocheck said.