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Rangers Radar: Igor Shestyorkin has been a wall for SKA

A column looking at stats and trends for Rangers and Rangers prospects

Welcome to Rangers Radar, an experimental new column where we’ll be turning the spotlight on trends in performance and production for the New York Rangers, the Hartford Wolf Pack, and Rangers prospects.

New York Rangers

  • Brett Howden, who was recently injured and is expected to be out for a while, has played in 31-consecutive games without scoring a goal. His last goal was scored on Nov. 12 in the Rangers’ 2-1 win over the Vancouver Canucks. Howden had 13 points in the first 25 games of his rookie season and has just two points in his last 23 games.
  • Filip Chytil has taken one minor penalty and drawn three penalties at 5-on-5 since the start of December. All together this season, Chytil has drawn 11 penalties at 5-on-5, which has given him the team-lead lead in penalty differential.
  • While Jimmy Vesey has one goal in his last 12 games, he is four points shy of matching the 28 points he had in his sophomore year, which is his most productive NHL season to date.
  • Since Dec. 1, Pavel Buchnevich has skated an average of 11:50 TOI at 5-on-5 per game. Boo Nieves and Howden are the only two Rangers forwards who have seen less ice time in that span that have played in at least 17 games.
  • Buchnevich’s 1.24 primary points per 60 minutes of 5-on-5 hockey rank sixth among all Rangers skaters this season. After scoring two power play goals on Jan. 15, head coach David Quinn gave Buchnevich 10:12 TOI (all strengths) on Jan. 17 and 9:19 TOI (all strengths) on Jan. 19./

Hartford Wolf Pack

  • Lias Andersson had two goals, four assists, and 19 SOG in 11 GP in the month of January playing with the Hartford Wolf Pack. He currently has 0.67 points per-game with the Wolf Pack this season, which is good for fifth on the team. Andersson averaged 0.56 points per-game in the AHL last season.
  • After snapping a seven-game goalless drought, Vinni Lettieri has scored four goals in his last six games. Lettieri has scored four of his 12 goals on the power play this season, but he has just one power play goal in his last 17 games.
  • The assist that Libor Hajek picked up on Jan. 18 against the Lehigh Valley Phantoms snapped a 21-game long scoring drought for the defenseman. Hajek is one of 31 defensemen in the AHL who are under 21 years of age. He has zero goals and five assists in his rookie season.
  • Ville Meskanen is second on the Wolf Pack in primary points scored at even strength with 14 primary points in 45 games. Meskanen has just one primary point — and four total points — on the power play this season./

Checking in on Ville Meskanen

  • Tim Gettinger has scored two goals in his last 17 games in Hartford after scoring seven goals in his first 18 games of the season. He and Meskanen share the lead in goals among Hartford’s rookie skaters with nine apiece.
  • According to Prospect-stats.com, the Wolf Pack have the eighth-worst 5-on-5 Goals For percentage in the AHL (46.43%). Hartford is averaging 2.02 goals for per game and 2.33 goals against per game at 5-on-5 through the first 45 games of the season./

Other Rangers Prospects

  • Vitali Kravtsov is averaging 15:17 TOI/GP for Traktor in the KHL. He is second on his team in scoring with 18 points in 42 games and has taken just three minor penalties thus far this season. It’s also worth noting that Kravtsov is shooting at just 6.5 percent.
  • Corey Pronman ranked Olof Lindbom, the Rangers’ 39th overall pick of the 2018 Draft, as the 20th best NHL goalie prospect in his 2018-19 Midseason NHL Prospects Ranking (paywall). Lindbom, 18, has missed significant time this season due to injury and has an .886 Sv% through four appearances with Djurgårdens IF J20 in SuperElit.
  • In the aforementioned piece, Pronman ranked Igor Shestyorkin as the NHL’s top goaltending prospect. Shestyorkin, 23, has a .948 Sv% this season with SKA St. Petersburg while facing 22.98 shots against per 60 minutes in all situations. Lars Johansson of CSKA Moscow is the only goaltender in the KHL with a superior save percentage to Shestyorkin this season. (Nick Mercandante discussed Shestyorkin in this week’s flagship show of the podcast, Ep. 125)/
  • K’Andre Miller has picked up one goal and two assists in four games for Wisconsin since his return from the World Juniors. The 22nd overall pick of the 2018 Draft still leads the Badgers in scoring with 20 points in his first 22 games of NCAA hockey. He also ranks second among all freshmen defensemen in scoring in the nation, trailing Cooper Zech (undrafted) of Ferris State by three points./

Data courtesy of naturalstattrick.com, hockeyeastonline.com, prospect-stats.com, ahltracker.com, Corsica.Hockey, theahl.com, and khl.en.

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