The Rangers are in the mushy middle, the worst place to be

The New York Rangers entered the season in a strange place. With Mike Sullivan as the new head coach, expectations would normally be very high. You don’t hire a two-time Stanley Cup-winning coach with the intention of rebuilding. However, the Rangers were terrible last season, strangely coming off a season in which they were two wins away from making the Stanley Cup Finals. This year had a range of possibilities, with a general consensus that the Rangers would be a playoff team in transition. But now the Rangers are in the mushy middle, the worst place to be.

You could certainly argue that the Rangers are below (or even well below) average, which is more in line with their average place in the rankings and their atrocious play at home this season. Still, not many teams can claim to have an all-world defenseman and an all-world goalie like the Rangers do in Adam Fox and Igor Shesterkin. Add in forwards like Artemi Panarin, Vincent Trocheck and JT Miller and on paper the Rangers don’t look bad at all.

Yet hockey is not played on paper. Vincent Trocheck missed time due to injury, Artemi Panarin seems to be a shadow of his former self and JT Miller is a combination of the two problems. Combine that with Alexis Lafreniere’s subpar play, Will Cuylle’s slump and lack of secondary scoring, and it’s clear the Rangers are nothing special up front.

On defense, the Rangers, a historically inept team, appear to have improved a lot. Adam Fox is world champion again, Vladislav Gavrikov has been worth his big contract, Will Borgen has been excellent and the rest of the defense has been good enough.

Combine a defense that is slightly above expectations with an offense that is slightly below expectations, and what do you get? An average hockey team.

Mike Sullivan is pushing every button he can to get more out of this team, but there just isn’t much potential to tap. The grille is fine. Not great, just good. The players who are struggling have reason to be struggling. An aging core shows that they are going in the wrong direction. The youth don’t pick up on it. It happens.

What is most worth considering, however, is getting out of the mushy middle. Artemi Panarin’s departure in free agency will create cap space, but for whom? No one good will be a free agent. Maybe JT Miller will get healthy and improve, but his 99-point days are behind him. Maybe Alexis Lafreniere will become a bona fide top winger, but what does that look like? In our wildest dreams it feels like it’s 75 points.

Simply put, the ceiling appears to be an average team backed by a great goaltender.

The floor turns out to be a bad team.

Doesn’t inspire confidence, does it?