NEW YORK — New York Rangers coach Peter Laviolette’s decision to sit Kaapo Kakko for Friday’s Game 2 of the Eastern Conference final against the Florida Panthers raised questions about Kakko’s long-term future with the team.
But there are more immediate roster concerns it raises for the Rangers, especially after Laviolette told reporters Saturday that forward Jimmy Vesey is out week to week with an upper-body injury sustained in the game.
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Kakko, the 2019 No. 2 pick, is a restricted free agent with arbitration rights this summer. The healthy scratch was his first since Game 6 of the 2022 East final. Matt Rempe played in his place, logging a playoff career-high 10:06 of ice time in the 2-1 Rangers win and even getting out there for a shift in overtime.
Laviolette, who won’t have last change as visiting coach in Florida, avoided playing Rempe on the road during the team’s series against the Carolina Hurricanes. But Rempe’s performance in Game 2 may lead the coach to keep him in.
The Rangers had 13 forwards take warmups ahead of Game 2, but Kakko wasn’t one of them. Instead, Blake Wheeler went through pregame before getting scratched. Wheeler hasn’t played since a gruesome leg injury in February but said he is ready to help the team in any capacity.
Laviolette has given few clues to his lineup decisions throughout the playoffs, so it’s hard to know how much to read into Wheeler taking warmups instead of Kakko. But it feels possible that Wheeler — a resident of Boca Raton, Fla., in the offseason — plays his first game since Feb. 15 while Kakko sits again.
Discussing his play ahead of Game 2, Kakko said he felt like his line was getting chances and spending time in the offensive zone but added, “you still need to score sometimes.”
Kakko has only one goal and one assist in 11 games these playoffs.
“It’s a good thing we have all the players available,” he said of the Rangers lineup flexibility going into Game 2. “Coach’s choice who is going to be in. For sure, everyone wants to play.”
With the Hartford AHL season over, the Rangers added 13 players — including prospect Brennan Othmann and veteran Tyler Pitlick, who played 34 regular-season NHL games this season — to the roster. They’ll be on the taxi squad, though, and not skating with the main group.
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Behind Paul Maurice’s humor
Win or lose, Panthers coach Paul Maurice’s press conferences have been must-see TV this postseason.
Take after Friday night’s Game 2 loss, when a reporter asked Maurice if he had watched the replay of what happened on the Rangers’ winning goal by Barclay Goodrow.
The answer was a demonstrative “No.”
“I don’t know if you’ve been to the maze down there,” Maurice said sarcastically about the visitors’ area of dated Madison Square Garden, which is indeed so confusing it’d be easy to get lost trying to find your way from section to section. “The video guy is three zip codes away from our locker room. I haven’t seen my video guy. I’m not sure he still works for us. We have to send a telegram to find him.”
BARCLAY GOODROW WINS GAME 2 FOR THE RANGERS 🚨 pic.twitter.com/OoMTdDDiZy
— B/R Open Ice (@BR_OpenIce) May 25, 2024
Maurice has been entertaining and funny throughout the past two Panthers playoff runs. Sometimes, especially after losses, there’s a method to his madness, getting reporters to focus on what he’s saying and take the pressure off his players. And considering the Panthers played well Friday night despite the Rangers getting the overtime win, it was a smart deflection heading into Game 3, a Sunday matinee in South Florida.
Maurice was asked Saturday morning before the Panthers flew to Ft. Lauderdale whether this tactic has evolved over the years.
“A fair amount has changed — the way I approached this job in the last two years, for sure,” he said. “I come off the ice during the regular season mad sometimes. And I’ve had a few snarky press conferences where I’m being a jerk, but that’s just the mood that I was in at the time. It’s just true. But for the most part, none of you played (the game that night), so it’s not your fault if we lose, (and) you didn’t really help us if we win. So I’m not really mad at any of you when I come in here, and if you take a shot at me, well OK, that’s your job. That’s part of it. So I don’t come in here angry.
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“Also, I have a responsibility to lead, certainly in the tone and the mood of how we approach our day, and we do spend a lot of time talking about handling your day. So the game is gone and today we have something that we need to get done. There’s recovery, there’s travel and there’s family time. So we want to live in this day. And then I’d like to be a bit of an example. The breathing stuff’s just good because I drink too much coffee. It keeps the heart rate down.”
Maurice said he enjoys reading the articles every now and then, but maybe not so much for the content.
“Some of them I really enjoy and then the comments (from readers) are just awesome to me,” Maurice said. “I think I get ripped. You guys get it worse than we do because there’s some people who just don’t like what you write and they’re angry about it because they’re fans. So if it’s not the most positive article about their home team, you guys suck.”
Cause for Panthers’ confidence
As for the actual loss, the Panthers are confident they’ll be able to rebound at home. Maurice liked the way the Panthers played after getting through the first 10 minutes when the Rangers predictably came out fast and aggressive.
“You shouldn’t come in and beat the Presidents’ Trophy team twice in their own building,” Maurice said. “You really shouldn’t.”
Yet, the Panthers almost did, instead losing for the first time in their past 12 playoff overtimes.
And they are also 3-0 this postseason after a loss.
Why have they been so good at responding?
“It’s not dwelling on the loss,” winger Evan Rodrigues said. “It’s learning from it and being better next game. We’ve had a good mindset all year on fixing the things that we might not have done to the best of our ability and coming out hard the next game.”
Maurice gushes over Forsling
Gustav Forsling’s rise to becoming a household name as one of hockey’s best defensem*n continued in Game 2 when he went from blocking three shots on one shift to seemingly singlehandedly ruining a Rangers four-on-three.
Maurice can’t stop gushing over Forsling.
Gus Forsling round 1 mix for the defensive sickos pic.twitter.com/NZlkGYBG6i
— Dimitri Filipovic (@DimFilipovic) May 6, 2024
“Plus-minus for a forward is a dangerous one, especially wingers. They may have nothing to do with that. They may be playing with a sloppy centericeman, and they get dinged on it,” Maurice said before turning toward Forsling’s league-best plus-56 in the regular season. “Gustav always gets the other team’s best every single night. And if his minutes are down against the other team’s best, it’s because the other team’s coach is working him away from them and he’s that good.
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“I never played, so in some ways, it’s even hard for me to assess how good he is because some of those plays I take for granted now. His transition from backwards to sideways to forwards to stick on a puck is incredible. I’m standing against the wall (on the bench) with the other defensem*n, and he’ll do something on that turn and he’ll go over and kill a play and I can hear the guys laughing. Nobody can do that.
“You know what I like about Gustav Forsling? He’s all of the things that everybody would hope professional athletes are. Doesn’t come easy to him. He respects the chance he got because he had to work so damn hard for it and he did everything he could to get it. I don’t know whose quote this is, it’s sure as hell not mine: Character is the ardent pursuit of excellence without the guarantee of reward. That would be Gustav in the hinterland that he was in when he couldn’t get a regular job. He did it. He worked that hard to get that chance.”
GO DEEPERHow did so many NHL teams miss on Gustav Forsling? Inside the rise of the Panthers' 'Greek God'Rangers’ quiet stars
New York still has not gotten a goal this series from Artemi Panarin, Mika Zibanejad, Chris Kreider, Adam Fox or Alexis Lafrenière.
The top players had chances in Game 2, however.
Sergei Bobrovsky made a massive save on Zibanejad during a Rangers power play, and New York had 74.5 percent of the expected goals when Panarin was on the ice, according to Natural Stat Trick. Still, with the lack of actual point production and with Florida winning the special teams battle the first two games, New York is likely fortunate to leave for Florida tied 1-1.
“There’s better skill on both teams than the plays being completed,” Maurice said. “It’s a bit of a challenge out there right now for both teams.”
Panthers penalty kill
Kevin Stenlund has been a big part of the Panthers penalty kill this season and especially effective in helping shut down the Rangers’ vaunted power play this series, in which Florida is 6-for-6 on the penalty kill.
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But he said one big reason is the Panthers have done a good job staying out of the box.
“That helps,” Stenlund said.
Maurice believes the penalty kill is a strength for both teams.
“There haven’t been long power-play flurries where you’re under siege,” he said. “They had one good shot off the flank last game, but the penalty killing by both teams has been outstanding.”
(Photo of Kaapo Kakko: Danny Wild / USA Today)
