New York Rangers: Losing Lindy Ruff could be a blessing in disguise

Did the Devils do the New York Rangers a huge favor by hiring LindyRuff?

The New York Rangers will not look the same behind the bench when they start their play-in round series against the Carolina Hurricanes. On Thursday, July 9, the Devils announced they have hired Rangers assistant coach Lindy Ruff to be their head coach. The Rangers also announced that Ruff will not be re-joining the team behind the bench in the postseason. Replacing him will be Gord Murphy.

Ruff was a valued voice in the ear of young head coach David Quinn. However, whether or not that voice was a good thing is up for debate. Ruff was in charge of the Rangers defense. I suspect he had a lot of influence over how they played.

Everyone knows the Rangers have been poor defensively over the past three seasons. Since Ruff joined them in 2017, only the Ottawa Senators have allowed more 5v5 shot attempts against per hour. No matter which metrics you prefer to use to look at to evaluate a team’s defense, the Rangers have either been at the bottom or near the bottom defensively over the past three seasons.

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Before this season, you could point to the Rangers not having too much talent on their blueline, though I’d respectfully disagree. But then the Rangers traded for Jacob Trouba of the Winnipeg Jets. He was coming off a very solid season. But this season, Trouba’s advanced stats took a significant nosedive.

Part of that is probably because he didn’t have Josh Morrissey playing next to him. It’s worth noting Morrissey saw a similar nosedive. So they probably missed each other, which isn’t surprising because they were good together.

When I’ve watched the Rangers play recently, they’ve reminded me a lot of Lindy Ruff’s Dallas Stars. And not in a good way. Ruff’s Stars were weak defensively and often conceded zone entries without much resistance. With the Rangers, I noticed even less resistance. The same issues the Stars had with Ruff were there in New York. That’s enough for me to suspect Ruff is a significant reason why the Rangers have struggled defensively.

Losing Ruff is sort of a blessing in disguise for the Rangers for several reasons. First of all, it’s hard to imagine Gord Murphy being worse than Ruff. It’s quite telling the Rangers were happy to let Ruff depart the bench immediately after being hired by the Devils. Murphy will be able to provide a new voice and the Rangers will get a good look at him as an assistant coach.

Secondly, I’m fairly certain Ruff was the biggest reason for his team’s defensive struggles. As I mentioned earlier, the Rangers have had the same problems the last three seasons that the Stars did while Ruff was their head coach. It’s hard to believe that’s a coincidence. But losing Ruff will let the Rangers confirm this.

While I think Quinn deserves a share of the blame if he let Ruff influence him a bit too much, I also understand why he’d let that happen. Quinn’s a pretty new coach in the NHL. He has had to learn on the fly. With Ruff gone, the Rangers can start to properly evaluate if Quinn is the right coach for the team now that they’re contenders.

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Whether or not Quinn is the right coach remains to be seen. But in my opinion, Ruff had too much influence over him. I think the Rangers will view losing him as something that was ultimately good for both parties. Ruff gets to be a head coach again and stay around New York while the Rangers will hopefully hire a coach who will better utilize a uniquely talented blueline.

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