The other day I wrote about the Bruins’ power play. Today is about the New York Rangers. We don’t have as many games tracked as Boston, but we still have 13 games done which is enough to make some points about the Rangers power play. Before I start, I understand my Rangers audience is a bit broader in background. In order to try to make this easier to understand I will put a little glossary together.

Shots – Any shot attempt

Fenwick – Shots that are not blocked

A1/Shot Assist – The pass leading up to a shot

Home Plate – Area starting at the goal posts up to the faceoff dots to the top of the circle.

Individual Entries – Entries with the puck on the player’s stick (including dumps)

Entry Assists – Pass before the entry

Contributions – Combination of assists and individual actions

Now I promise Rangers fans there will be no mention of PDO in this article. The Rangers’ power play started off hot, but has since sizzled down to 10th in the league (20%). That is not a bad efficiency to be at, but there is room for improvement.

The Rangers’ power play has been somewhat consistent so far this season. Shots per 2 minutes never deviate more than .75 shots from the mean in 5 game segments. Goals are somewhat less consistent, but that is expected since it is a much more volatile stat. As I talked about in the Bruins post, and will become a theme, systems drive results for power plays. Specifically, how you enter the zone effects your shot rate and ability to score.

The Rangers average 1.62 passes leading up to zone entries. This is important because there is a dramatic increase in the likelihood of controlling your entry between 1 and 2 passes. Zone entries with 1 pass prior to the entry have a carry-in rate of 63% in our data. Zone entries with 2 passes prior have a carry-in rate of 75%. This pre-entry movement is certainly a positive in the system.

With the tactical version of the system looking good, it is time to look at player usage. Below is a chart of carry-in% of all 5v4 entry contributions for players. The chart is sorted left to right by entry attempts per minute. As you see, most Rangers are effective at entering the zone, and the ones that struggle are static wingers on the boards.



Now Zuccarello and Holden are probably under-used, but do you ever wonder how much these players fail? You might only carry-in the puck 75% of the time, but if you dump the puck in 20% of the time and fail the other 5%, you can still be pretty valuable.

I am sorry to break this chart to you Rangers fans, but I did drop it on Twitter first and you chose to read this far. Skjei has a slightly better carry-in% than Clendening, but he fails on his remaining entries while Clendening fails far less, giving him a higher expected shot rate. Vesey is another one who fails on his remaining entries and becomes less valuable at the blueline. You Rangers fans need to start a #FreeClendening campaign because this guy is being shafted.





The Rangers do a pretty good job moving the puck around in the offensive zone. They average 2.34 passes prior to a shot. That number is slightly above normal. Pre-shot movement could be helping their shot quality and driving shooting percentage on the power play. We know that passes have an effect at even strength on shooting percentage, so we expect the same here.

When it comes to the offensive zone, the Rangers rely heavily on the points. McDonagh leads the team in primary shot contributions per minute. Zibanejad plays along the half boards so of course he is an important piece too. Zuccarello and Clendening really impress me here though. Zuccarello produces the most home plate shots per minute on the team. The majority of his contributions are high quality which is very impressive for a player whose role on the power play is constantly changing. When it comes to Clendening, the gap between him and the other defensemen is huge. Playing the same role on the power play, Clendening produces almost twice the amount of shots.

The Rangers may have a decent power play already, but in order to become elite, they must make changes with their usage. A lot of Rangers fans have been calling for AV’s head and I think there is some justification there. Without Clendening on the second unit, those minutes are not optimized.