New York Rangers Have Light Schedule At Right Time

By Dominic Lancella on October 31, 2014

The New York Rangers now have nine games under their belt and seem to be settling into the 2014-15 season. The last two weeks have been extremely meaningful for the Rangers for a couple reasons. For one, New York has won four of their last five games, but what’s even more important is that the Rangers are finishing up a very light spot in their schedule. New York has only had three games in the last 11 nights, and it bodes very well for the Rangers at this particular time.

Getting some much-needed rest shouldn’t be a high priority or a problem this early in the season, but the last two weeks will help the Rangers down the road. Coach Alain Vigneault held a press conference after a practice earlier this week and said that the light schedule of late has allowed them to work on their team conditioning a lot.

It doesn’t seem like a huge deal because every team does conditioning, but the Rangers are a team that’s built on speed. Any extra conditioning is going to greatly help the Rangers, as the team has had four days in a row off this week after playing on Monday. Vigneault also said that New York has used their extra practice time to work on the power play and five-on-five situations on both offense and defense.

Another huge positive for the Rangers amidst their light schedule of late is that New York’s top center Derek Stepan has been working furiously to return to the lineup and is close to starting to practice again. The Rangers have quite a loaded schedule in November, but the time off that New York has right now has been huge. The Rangers want to play as few games as possible without Stepan, and their current schedule coincidentally helps that. Vigneault said that he expects Stepan to be back on the ice practicing in “four-to-seven days,” a timetable that is very encouraging if you’re a Ranger fan.

It doesn’t mean that Stepan is going to practice a couple times and return to the starting lineup next week, but he hasn’t suffered any setbacks since sustaining the broken leg and has been extremely motivated to get back. This Tuesday will mark an even four weeks that Stepan has been on injured reserve, with his original timetable at 4-6 weeks out of action. If he continues his progress, Stepan could be back in the lineup within the next two or so weeks.

For all of these reasons, this has unexpectedly been a quiet stretch that the Rangers could really benefit from. It also doesn’t hurt that the Rangers have won two out of the three games that made up this 11-night stretch. Overall, the Rangers are getting a lot of rest and conditioning while their first-line center has been recovering on time without any setbacks.

Vigneault believes that New York’s light schedule now will pay dividends in the future. One thing is for sure: The Rangers would much rather handle a loaded schedule with Stepan than without him, and this stretch of three games in 11 nights might minimize the games that Stepan misses this season.