New York Rangers: After Strong Start, Brandon Pirri has Been Invisible
When Mika Zibanejad broke his fibula against the Panthers in late November, many people pegged Pirri in as a top 9 center for the New York Rangers, but since being bumped up to that role, he hasn’t done much of anything.
Brandon Pirri got off to an extremely hot start for the New York Rangers. In his first season on Broadway, Pirri had notched five goals and five assists through his first 20 games of the season in his fourth line and power play roles. He was the clear choice to move up into the top nine when center Mika Zibanejad went down with a broken fibula on Sunday, November 20th.
Since then, well, he hasn’t produced nearly as much.
In fact, the New York Rangers may need to send out a search party to find the 25-year-old Toronto native.
Nov 15, 2016; Vancouver, British Columbia, CAN; New York Rangers forward Brandon Pirri (73) skates against the Vancouver Canucks during the second period at Rogers Arena. The New York Rangers won 7-2. Mandatory Credit: Anne-Marie Sorvin-USA TODAY Sports
Since the injury, Pirri doesn’t have a single point while seeing his ice time bumped up about two to three minutes on average per game over the seven games the team has played since Zibanejad went down.
Even worse than that, Pirri has only tallied 1 point over the course of his last 14 games, while also compiling a minus 7 rating.
This is a hard problem to solve, as the restricted free agent to be is, at the moment, one of the Rangers’ only options at the third line center spot.
The team has tried putting J.T. Miller at center, but it is clear that he is much more comfortable on the wing and while the team has a ton of depth on the wings in the minors, they do not have much going for them at the center position in terms of NHL ready talent.
What can the Rangers do?
Unfortunately, there is no easy answer to that question. The Zibanejad injury is obviously been more impactful–in a negative way–than anybody anticipated it being. Until he gets back to the lineup, the Rangers will just have to weather the storm and get offense from other places.
But Pirri needs to find a way to get active in the offense again.
Pirri only has 11 shots over the last 8 games, and not many of them are quality chances. Pirri needs to do what he was doing to start the season; be ready for the pass when he doesn’t have the puck and be willing to fire away. If he enters the zone with the puck, don’t worry about making that extra pass and just put it on net.
Now with the injuries to Rick Nash and Matt Puempel–although we don’t know the severity of them just yet–the Rangers’ ship could be sunk without Pirri getting involved in the offense.
A team that’s staple was putting the puck in the net early in the season has been struggling to do so, and has created this ugly stat with the lack of defensive capabilities; the Rangers are 4-9-1 when they score fewer than four goals. Pirri needs to go back to basics and start helping this team get back to a healthy scoring average to save them from their defense.
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