How Fox and Hajek Stood Out in the Preseason Opener

The objective in hockey is to outscore the opposition. A derivative of that objective would be to create lots of scoring opportunities for your team while preventing the other team from creating many of their own. One more derivation might be: get control of the puck and push play towards the opposing end of the ice.

If you have the puck, then your efforts are going towards advancing the puck forward to the offensive zone. If the other team has the puck, then you want to stop them from advancing it and ultimately force them to give it up.

Last Season

The Rangers struggled mightily with those objectives last season. Corey Sznajder tracks a lot of micro-data for all 31 NHL teams. Here were his findings for the Rangers when it comes to various statistics that offer a glimpse at how well the Rangers advanced the puck and prevented the opposition from doing so.

There is a lot to digest here, but the Rangers were effectively as bad as any team in the NHL when it came to zone entries and exits. They ranked 28th out of 31 teams in creating zone entries; that is, successfully moving the puck from the neutral zone into the offensive zone. They fared slightly better when there was a meaningful forecheck (pressure), but still among the league’s worst.

In particular, their defense struggled to advance the puck, as they had the second-worst success rate at exiting the zone.

Alternatively, opposing teams had quite an easy time maintaining possession and advancing the puck against the Rangers. The Rangers rolled out the red carpet for the other team as they carried the puck through the neutral zone. No team in the entire league was worse at preventing the opposition from successfully carrying the puck across the blue line.

There are numerous contributing factors here. One is, of course, coaching. Blame Quinn or blame Ruff, but someone has advised Rangers players to effectively concede the outside lanes for the sake of protecting the middle of the ice. This creates a lot of space for opposing players to carry the puck in down the wings.

Another big problem for the Rangers, and perhaps a cause for those tactics, was defensive personnel. Neal Pionk was a doormat at the blue line last season, breaking up just one entry attempt out of the 78 times he was targeted. Counterintuitively, he was also not that great at moving the puck out of the defensive zone. Conversely, Trouba is a top puck-mover from the defensive zone, and while he’s fairly poor at defending the blue line, he’s still notably superior to Pionk. That trade alone should do wonders at improving the Rangers’ metrics.

Fox and Hajek

The Rangers are also hoping that rookies Adam Fox and Libor Hajek can come in and invoke change. In the first preseason game against New Jersey, both offered plenty of reason for optimism.

One of Fox’s best attributes is making reads and timing his movements. This manifested in a few different situations against the Devils.

Adam Fox is 5-foot-11 and 185 pounds. He’s also a mediocre skater. These deficiencies are going to impact the way he plays the game.  He does not have the strength or speed to clean up problems as they present themselves. Rather, he’s going to have to out-think everyone and anticipate plays before they develop. He does that twice in the clips above and the results are quite good. In both instances, the Devils fail to exit and the Rangers keep play alive in the offensive zone.

Here are two more examples on the defensive side.

The scenarios are different, but the effect is the same. Fox anticipates where the puck is going and picks it off, then immediately finds an outlet so that the Rangers can advance the puck out of the defensive zone.

Libor Hajek had significant trouble with these types of scenarios at Traverse City and in the AHL last season. He was quite good at retrieving pucks, but when it came to moving it to a teammate he struggled mightily. Take a look at some of these plays (#43).

Despite the poor performance, Hajek nonetheless earned a promotion to the Rangers last season where he actually looked much improved. That carried over into the preseason opener against the Devils. Compare the above clips to the following ones and note the difference.

Hajek is a very good skater, and here we see him using his feet to get to pucks first and then dish it forward to a teammate. Here’s an example of him using his strength when defending a zone entry, which was his forte throughout junior hockey.

These aren’t jaw-dropping plays, but they matter. Too often last season, these little moments did not go in the Rangers’ favor. The Rangers defensemen routinely got beat to pucks, or were unsuccessful in picking off passes, or didn’t keep a puck in at the blue line. Over the course of an 82-game season, these little moments add up to multiple goals for or against.

Fox and Hajek looked the part in the preseason opener. The necessary disclosure, of course, is that it’s a one-game sample against a number of players who will be in minor league hockey next week.

Will Fox and Hajek be able to tilt the ice in the Rangers’ favor on a consistent basis when they’re up against bona fide five-man NHL units three times every week? That’s going to be a discussion well into the winter. In any case, both Fox and Hajek made great first impressions and gave the coaching staff every reason to take them seriously.