The more things change, the less.
That encapsulates perhaps the most dramatic difference between the way Gerard Gallant ran the bench as head coach last season and the manner in which Peter Laviolette has conducted it this year.
Through the first 35 games of 2022-23, during which the Blueshirts went 19-11-5, Gallant employed 41 different line combinations as starting units. Mika Zibanejad skated between six sets of wingers while both Vincent Trocheck and Filip Chytil each had 10 different sets of wingers. The club used 15 different fourth-line combinations with three different centers.
Laviolette, on the other hand, has used a sum of 16 different line combinations as starting units over his first 35 games while the team has gone 25-9-1. Zibanejad has skated with three sets of wingers, Trocheck, two. Chytil skated on one line in 10 games before leaving the lineup on Nov. 2. The fourth line has remained inviolate since Chytil left the lineup.
Vive la différence.
Been there, done that
Tyler Motte is a good guy who wasn’t terribly effective in his second go-round in the playoffs with the Rangers.
If you want to say that pretty much no one else was very effective against the Devils last spring, you’d be correct, but that’s not my point here.
The Blueshirts acquired Motte as a rental at the 2022 deadline from Vancouver for a fourth-rounder. Then, after he signed a one-year deal with the Senators as a free agent, GM Chris Drury reacquired him as a rental from Ottawa ahead of the 2023 deadline for a seventh-rounder and Julien Gauthier.
Motte played well in the 2022 tournament while generally on a line with either Kevin Rooney or Barclay Goodrow and Ryan Reaves. He did not play so well in the 2023 first round while on a unit with Goodrow and Jimmy Vesey.
But now, after signing a one-year deal with Tampa Bay for a most Rangerish $800,000, the winger is likely going to be available at a third straight deadline. The Blueshirts have never in franchise history traded for the same player three different times, let alone on three consecutive trade deadlines.
Excluding paper transactions involving pending free agents, the likes of which saw Mike Richter’s rights sent to Edmonton in 2002 before Mark Messier’s rights went to San Jose and Brian Leetch’s rights to Vancouver in 2003, there is only one player who has been acquired three different times by the organization.
That would be Esa Tikkanen.
Tikkanen was first acquired at 1993 deadline from the Oilers in exchange for Doug Weight. After contributing to the 1994 Cup victory, Tikkanen was traded over the ensuing summer to St. Louis in the deal for Petr Nedved as part of the Mike Keenan fiasco.
He was back ahead of the 1997 deadline, acquired from Vancouver with Russ Courtnall for Sergei Nemchinov and Brian Noonan, and played well in the run to the conference finals while scoring memorable overtime winners against Florida in both Game 3 at the Garden and the clinching Game 5 in Miami. Yes, the Panthers once played hockey in Miami.
Tikkanen returned a third time as a free agent on a tryout for 1998 training camp. Fighting for a contract and his career, Tikkanen led the team in scoring during camp after playing on the first line. He was, of course, signed. That was pretty much the end of it. No. 10 labored through 32 games without scoring a goal before he was released amid a cloud of uncertainty about whether Tikkanen had been playing on a shot knee.
That brings us back to Motte.
Yes, he’s a popular guy. He’s a hard worker. He fits in the room. But I have zero interest in another reunion between the Rangers and him. This team has no need for another bantamweight. It has no need for another player who is generously listed at 5-foot-10 — and that may be with skates.
The Blueshirts need to bulk up for the second season. The size of the fight in the dog is paramount, but the size of the dog in the playoff fight is at least equally important. The Rangers do not have enough size and they do not have enough brawn for the tournament. They are not menacing enough. Another support guy on the bottom six at an alleged 5-10 is not going to cut it.
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Historic pace
The Rangers’ .729 points percentage is their third best pre-New Year’s mark in franchise history, trailing behind only the 1971-72 team’s .778 (25-5-6) and 1970-71’s .730 (24-7-6).