A Journey into the 2022-23 New York Rangers by Jennifer Kate

This 2022-2023 New York Rangers team has to be one of my favorite teams they have ever had. This year, the Rangers have done an incredible job. They had pieces from years past that they knew had leadership and a drive and passion to help this team succeed.

They used those pieces to bring up young kids to help this team. In particular, they put together a trio of three young kids, who are now formally known as the Kid Line. The Kid Line consists of Alexis Lafrenière, Filip Chytil, and Kaapo Kakko. These three youngsters have clicked for the Rangers and have become a staple for this Rangers team. The Kid Line has a combined 56 goals for the Rangers, along with a combined 68 assists, this season alone. That’s incredible!

Now just for comparison's sake, let’s look at your top line, which consists of three veteran guys who have been with this team for a while now: Chris Kreider, Mika Zibanejad, and Patrick Kane. This line put up 80 goals and 72 assists. Now, yes, this line's numbers are better than The Kid Line's at the moment. No one can deny that. But the point I’m making is these kids are hungry to be veterans and help this team for many years to come.

Just recently, the Rangers announced that they extended 23-year-old Filip Chytil to a 4-year, $417.75 million contract. If I’m being a bit honest here, he took a hometown discount, which just goes to prove what the Rangers mean to him and what he means to the Rangers.

Alexis Lafrenière, the first overall pick in 2020, got off to quite a slow start but has since improved his game. He’s been a good pick for the Rangers and has been fitting in well with this team. This season, Lafrenière has been slightly inconsistent but he’s had a good season. He’s held his own, ending the season with 16 goals and 23 assists.

Now to finish that line off with one of my favorite players who I met in person (but that’s a story for a different day). Kaapo Kaako has been a very good player as of late. You've seen him come out of his shell and start to find his game. He's been a very useful player for this team. You've heard his name a lot cause he’s been doing the right thing, which for a young player is a great thing. We need to keep that consistency with this Kid Line. Kaapo ended the season with 18 goals and 22 assists, which for him was a breakout season.

Moving on to the rest of the team, the Rangers had regular key pieces such as Chris Kreider, Mika Zibanejad and Artemi Panarin. Now I must admit I don’t love Panarin, and I will get into that a little bit later, but I want to talk a little bit about the pieces the Rangers added this season. They added some big-name guys like Kane, Tarasenko, Mikkola and Trocheck. They also brought back Tyler Motte, who had been nothing but a huge help to this Rangers team, and Jimmy Vesey, who has been a solid guy up and down the lineup for this organization.

Now I want to talk about a guy who’s been super fun to watch for the Rangers. He’s been helping with production and he’s just a fun and high-energy player: the one and only Vincent Trocheck -- or as WeBleedBlue says it on a shirt Forecheck, Backcheck, Trocheck.

Trocheck had a great season ending the season with 22 goals and 42 assists. Trocheck came to the Rangers from the Metropolitan Division rival Carolina Hurricanes. Trocheck has such good energy on the ice and has clicked with all his teammates. He seems like a guy who gets along with anyone.

Then there's an absolute legend in the NHL. This guy will go to the Hall of Fame one day -- that and my Slap Shots Fired co-host is a huge fan of this guy -- the amazing Patrick Kane. This guy is an icon in the hockey world. And you know what’s crazy? Some of the young kids coming up in the league look up to this guy, and now he’s playing with some kids on the Rangers who looked up to him when they were watching and playing hockey growing up. Patrick Kane currently has five goals and seven assists since joining the Rangers.

Another good addition for the Rangers was NHL veteran and 2019 Stanley Cup winner Vladimir Tarasenko. Since joining the Rangers, Tarasenko has proven himself to be a big help to the Rangers' top six and quickly started to produce early, which is exactly why the Rangers brought him in. Tarasenko ended the season with five goals and nine assists in 22 games with New York.

Now there’s one more guy who we need to talk about before we move on, and he was a guy who not a lot of people knew because he isn’t a household name. Niko Mikkola came over in the trade with Tarasenko when the Rangers traded Sammy Blais back to the St. Louis Blues. Mikkola, a 6'5" defenseman, turned out to be a decent pick-up for the Rangers. He hasn't scored a goal yet, but he’s been very helpful on the back end of things.

The defensemen on this team are solid and deserve to be shown love, too. This team is gonna have a lot of good young talent in years to come. Scrappy defenseman Braden Schneider, who is just 21, has grown up before our eyes and helped out on the back end. He’s been physical with throwing his body around to hit guys and take a shooting lane away from players when possible. He also fights and stands up for his teammates when needed. I have become a huge fan of Schneider, and he’s another player I've met, but again that’s a story for a different day. Schneider ended the season with five goals and 13 assists. A total of 18 points doesn't sound like a lot, but defensemen aren’t known to have a lot of points because their main job is to protect the goalie and try to deflect pucks away from the net, but they can score when needed.

Jacob Trouba, the 28th captain of the New York Rangers, became the team's first captain since 2017-2018 when they traded Ryan Mcdonagh. Trouba has led this team well and his leadership shows both on and off the ice. Back on February 6, Trouba leveled Andreas Athanasiou. He was sent to the locker room with less than three minutes remaining in the period but not before yelling "Wake the f*** up!" After that, the Rangers went on to win seven straight games. This was the turning point of the Rangers season. Trouba ended his season with eight goals and 22 assists.

Ryan Lindgren won this year’s Steven McDonald Extra Effort Award. He is a team favorite and a guy who has shown a lot of leadership. If I'm being a bit of a homer here, I think he would have also been a great team captain. There is a reason why I call this guy a robot; he gets hurt and comes back like nothing happened. That’s the type of hardworking player he is. Lindgren had a great season, showing what it truly means to be a Ranger and a hockey player. Lindgren ended the season with 1 goal and 17 assists. This guy is very selfless and passes to get an assist for his teammates; that’s something you don’t see very often anymore.

Adam Fox, the 2021 Norris Trophy winner, had another exceptional year and has once again stepped up this season and worked hard. Unfortunately, during the season, he did lose his linemate, Lindgren, to injury. It showed as Fox struggled, and again this proves why Lindgren deserved the Steven Mcdonald Award. Fox ended the season with 12 goals and 60 assists

K'Andre Miller had a good year but had an "unfortunate incident" happen and that’s when he started to not be himself on the ice. Before this unfortunate situation took place, Miller was starting to find his game and was playing well, and I was starting to become a fan of him. Miller ended the season with nine goals and 34 assists.

This year’s team had both young talent and generational talent. If you look at it from an outside perspective, they would look like a good team with lots of talent, but that is just scratching the service. I’m not going to be completely homer and say this team didn’t have its fair share of issues, but I feel like every team went through a lot of issues this season between injuries and locker room issues and going on long losing streaks, which can cause changes in people's attitudes, but that’s beside the point.

The Rangers ended the season in third place in the Metropolitan Division and had 107 points on the season, which is great. However, every season has its ups and downs. There is one situation that happened that caused this team to struggle, and in my personal opinion, could have easily been avoided. Miller got a three-game suspension for spitting on Los Angeles Kings assistant captain and defenseman Drew Doughty. During that time, the Rangers had to play two defensemen down. Lindgren was already out with a strained shoulder, so the Rangers were down two defensemen. Some of you will say 'Well, injuries happen' but the point is being down two defensemen is a struggle for any team.

Nonetheless, this Rangers team was such a fun team to watch on the ice. Watching the young kids find their games right before our eyes was such a cool experience, and if you haven’t gone to an NHL game, I would highly recommend you go to one. Being a Rangers fan, I would highly recommend seeing a game at Madison Square Garden, but that’s just me.

But to sum up, the young talent mixed with the high-octane generational talent has been such a treat and joy. One of my favorite Rangers experiences has to be meeting the players before the game at what I like to call the players' lot. Funny enough, that’s where I met my boyfriend Hank, but that’s a story for a different day. With all of this being said, I just have to say to sum up how I feel about the Rangers in five simple words: NO QUIT IN NEW YORK!

Unfortunately, the team's 2022-23 season ended a little sooner than I would have liked to have seen. However, there is a bright side to this outcome. We proved a lot of people wrong this season. No one expected to be where we ended up. Nonetheless, losing in a shutout in Game 7 isn’t the way you wanna go out.

The Rangers dominated the first two games of their first-round postseason matchup with the Devils, winning both games 5-1. However, the next three games saw gutsy performances by the New Jersey Devils. The Devils are a young team, but as I talked about on Slap Shots Fired with Hank Indictor, playoff experience matters (oh the irony of us saying this).

Game 3 for the Rangers was like a slap in the face; it was the first time the Ranger fans realized we had a full series on our hands and that we were strapped in for the long haul. I have a hot take for you guys. Game 3 was more of a heart-breaker than Game 7. Game 3 ended with a score of 3-2, with Jersey taking it in overtime. Games 4 and 5 were just plain bad for the Rangers, as the Devils also took both of those, with scores of 3-1 and 4-0, respectively.

At this point, we Ranger fans were feeling the pressure and headed back to Madison Square Garden down 3-2. With the series on the line, the Rangers stole a huge one from the Devils 5-2. With the series tied up, the Rangers and Devils headed back to Prudential Center for Game 7. There, Hank and I sadly watched the Rangers' season come to a sad end with a score of 4-0.

No matter the outcome of this season, this was still one of the most fun Ranger teams I’ve ever watched, and they truly were a special team this season. This is why this team is, and always will be, my favorite Rangers team since I could remember, and I’ve been going to and watching Ranger games since I was 5 or 6 years old.

Regardless of how sad I may feel thinking back on what went wrong for this team, I still love and support my team. I still just have five words to say: NO QUIT IN NEW YORK!