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Adam Fox had been paired with Ryan Lindgren for 785 of the nearly 904 minutes he has been on the ice this season in five-on-five situations heading into Thursday’s game in St. Louis. That amounts to 87 percent of the time.
Over their corresponding first three seasons in the league, they have been practically conjoined with the two playing alongside each other for 154 of the 162 games the American lads have both been in the lineup. That includes all 52 this season with Fox and Lindgren each having missed three games at different times.
Fox had perhaps the worst game of his storybook career on Thursday, a minus-four for the first time while also on for four even-strength goals against for the first time. Lindgren, too, went minus-four while on for four against for the first time. Batman and Robin were taken down hard. No joke.
But Rangers head coach Gerard Gallant split the pair for the third period of Thursday’s 6-2 debacle of a defeat to the Blues, going primarily with Patrik Nemeth on Fox’s left while Braden Schneider skated on Lindgren’s right side. With the game out of hand, Gallant took the opportunity to rest Fox, giving the reigning Norris Trophy winner only 3 minutes of ice time in the third.
The Blueshirts did not practice on Friday, so it is unknown whether Gallant intends to keep the pair apart for Saturday’s road trip finale in Dallas. There is only so much remodeling the coach can do. It is doubtful that Gallant would break up the K’Andre Miller-Jacob Trouba duo that has been intact for all of the club’s 58 games. It is an open question whether Nemeth could handle top-four matchup minutes. They’re not recalling Zac Jones and playing him on the top pair.
This represented the nadir, but the pair has seemed off-key since the Rangers returned from their two-week winter hiatus on Feb. 15. That date coincides with Fox’s return to active duty after having been sidelined with an upper-body injury for the three games immediately preceding the break. If there is a connection, mum has been — and surely will continue to be — the word.
The Rangers have gone 3-4 in their last seven while allowing 21 goals over their last six games that have included dreadful showings in 5-2 losses to both the Canucks and the Wild and in Thursday’s misadventure against the Blues. And over that last dirty half-dozen, the Fox-Lindgren pair have been on for three goals for and nine against at even-strength.
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This does represent a small sample size. But extending to include all 11 games since the return in which the Rangers’ 6-4-1 record flatters the team, the Fox-Lindgren tandem has been on for six goals for and 11 against. Before Fox went down in Columbus on Jan. 27, the pair had been on for 35 goals for and 20 against.
No one is blaming Fox and/or Lindgren for the club’s troubles. Kaapo Kakko’s absence, which will reach seven weeks and 18 games on Saturday without a return date in sight, has proved devastating to the top six. Issues that have sidelined fourth-liners Kevin Rooney and Greg McKegg have compounded the problem by also highlighting the club’s lack of bottom-six depth. At the same time, coverage and structure in the defensive zone have crumbled.
Suddenly, leaks are springing all over the place and reinforcements may be necessary just to stanch the bleeding, as opposed to bolstering the club for a long playoff run. This may be counterintuitive, but the more the Rangers appear to need, the less that first-year president-general manager Chris Drury should feel pressure to swing for the fences as the March 21 trade deadline approaches.
This team is not a piece or two away from 16 playoff victories. There doesn’t seem to be a rental on the market worth sacrificing a blue chip to acquire. J.T. Miller is another story, as he would become a 2022-23 linchpin, but the price of acquisition likely will be too high to accommodate.
Drury has been scoping out defensemen to add depth for a couple of months. But the issue lately has been at the top of the ladder. Does it make sense to go all in on Seattle’s Mark Giordano or Anaheim’s Hampus Lindholm as a premium rental in order to pair either with Fox while shifting Lindgren to the third pair with Schneider? I’d say the answer is a solid no. The same is true for a similar scenario regarding Ben Chiarot.
There is every reason to trust in Fox and in the matchup pair that he has formed with Lindgren. But both could use far better support than they have received recently from the group of forwards whose delinquency in backchecking has reached epidemic status. The Rangers haven’t been particularly hard on the puck going in either direction.
It is a long season. Teams have dips. So do top-end players. But in order for the Rangers to get out of this one, they will need more from Fox and more from Lindgren. More from their matched pair, as long as it remains one.
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