Discussion of the Day: 10/24/23

Happy Tuesday everyone. The New York Rangers, and the rest of the league for that matter, are back in action this evening. New York is in Calgary to take on the Flames in what is the second game of an early season road trip. The Blueshirts are fresh off a 4-1 win in which Jonathan Quick earned his first win as a Ranger stopping 18 of the 19 shots faced.

Today’s prompt is another simple one with such little hockey having been played, and it is focused on goal scoring. Thus far, Chris Kreider has scored 4 times, Artemiy Panarin has scored 3 times, Alexis Lafrenière has found the back of the net twice, and Adam Fox, Erik Gustafsson, Kaapo Kakko, Vincent Trocheck, Jacob Trouba, and Will Cuylle have each scored once.

Notably, Mika Zibanejad (5 assists in 5 games) and Filip Chytil (4 assists in 5 games) are still searching for their first goal, but they are contributing in other ways. In both cases it isn’t for lack of trying, as Zibanejad has taken 14 shots, and Chytil has taken 13.

That said, when the season is said and done, what do you think the top 5 will look like for leading goal scorers?

Last season Zibanejad finished with 39 in 82 games, Kreider had 36 in 79 games, Panarin had 29 in 82 games, Trocheck had 33 in 82 games, and Chytil had 22 in 74 games. Personally, I think this has the potential to be a bigger year for Lafrenière, Kakko, and Chytil who finished seventh, eighth, and fifth respectively. Trocheck is someone who is already seeing a bit of a decline in minutes, and he’s a prime candidate to get knocked out of the top 5. Kreider is off to a hot start, and I expect him to remain up there as well.  There’s only so many goals to go around, and as the season unfolds we will see how many of them are scored on the power play. If the Rangers continue to play better at 5v5 relative to last year, there’s a chance that some of Zibanejad’s goals are scored by the kids.

I hope you have a great rest of today, and I will see you back here tomorrow.