Penalty killing a Rangers' strength early in the season

Ten games into an 84-game season is still pretty early to make sweeping judgments. But in compiling a 6-3-1 record that had them second in the Metropolitan Division and third in the Eastern Conference in the early going, it’s clear the Rangers have done a lot of good things so far.

One of those has been killing penalties. Entering Monday’s game against the Anaheim Ducks at Madison Square Garden, the Rangers had killed 16 straight opposition power plays, and they hadn’t allowed a power play goal in their last five games — four of which had been started by goaltender Dylan Garand, stepping in for the lost-for-the-season Igor Shesterkin.

The last team to score on the power play against the Blueshirts was the Islanders, who got an extra man goal from Bo Horvat early in the second period of the Rangers’ 5-2 win Oct. 6. Over the first 10 games, the Rangers had the league’s second-best penalty kill, snuffing 29-of-31 opposition power plays (93.5%), including a 5-on-3 for the full two minutes last Thursday in New Jersey, and a 4-on-3 in the beginning of overtime in Saturday’s 1-0 OT loss in Columbus.

So what have they been doing that’s been making the PK so effective?

“I think, just execution,’’ coach Mike Sullivan said at the Rangers’ morning skate Monday in Westchester. “From a scheme standpoint, it's identical [to last season, when it finished ninth in the league, at 81.4%]. The personnel group is a little bit different. I think we've added some skaters that give us the ability to pressure more. [And] we've tried to use more people. That helps us from, just from a rest standpoint, to be able to become more of a ‘pressure’ kill than we were last year.”

One of the reasons the Rangers claimed forward Tye Kartye off waivers from Seattle last season was the fact that they liked his work as a penalty killer. Adding him, then signing free agents Eeli Tolvanen and Joe Veleno, and bringing in defensemen Marcus Pettersson and Sean Durzi via trade, has allowed Sullivan to spread out the penalty-killing responsibilities, and reduce the load on top players like Mika Zibanejad, J.T. Miller and Adam Fox.

Youngsters Noah Laba and Will Cuylle are generally the first forward duo over the boards on the kill, unlike past years, when Zibanejad and Chris Kreider, or Miller and Vincent Trocheck might have started the man down. Defenseman Braden Schneider has taken over most of Fox’s shorthanded ice time.

“You look at the ‘Karts,’ ‘Cools,’ ‘Labs,’ ‘Tolvy,’ and they've done an unreal job,’’ said Zibanejad, who does still get ice time on the PK, and was front and center — along with Miller on the 5-on-3 kill in New Jersey. “And obviously the goaltender is also a PKer, so they've been good for us.”

Entering Monday, Garand had a .927 save percentage on the season, the same as Shesterkin. And on the penalty kill, Garand had stopped all 15 shots he’d seen, while Shesterkin had stopped 14-of-16. Spencer Martin, who was elevated from Hartford to be the backup to Garand, stopped 3-of-3 in a relief appearance. Overall, the Rangers’ goalies have stopped 32-of-34 shots (.941) they’ve seen on the power play.

The penalty killers aren’t just being reactive, though. When they’re down a man, the Rangers’ preferred strategy is to pressure the puck, and try to force the opposing power play to move it quickly, and under duress, rather than allowing them to set up and try to find seams and weaknesses in their PK setup.

“Just anytime you can put any type of pressure… not let them set up,’’ Zibanejad said of the Rangers’ objectives on the penalty kill. “It starts with the faceoffs. Obviously, you're trying to win the faceoff. You're trying to get it down [the length of the ice], and you try to disturb them. So even though teams get in [the offensive zone], they don't get in with a chance to set up and get their power play going.”

The strategy changes, he said, when faced with a 5-on-3, as in New Jersey on Thursday, or a 4-on-3 in overtime, as they did on Saturday in Columbus.

“It becomes less pressure on a three-on-five, or a three-on-four, obviously, because you don't want to give up that [extra space on the] ice,’’ he said. “You try to take away any hard chances for the goalie to make saves, and I think that's usually seam passes and a lot of passes going just back and forth. You’re trying to make it as easy as possible for the goalie, and hoping that you get a couple big [shot] blocks.”

Blue lines

The Rangers signed free agent C Luke Glendening, 37, to a professional tryout.

“Luke obviously has a significant body of work in the league,” Sullivan said of the 13-year veteran, who played last season for the Devils and Flyers. “Obviously, we've got a little bit of challenge with respect to depth at the center position, and I think Chris [Drury] thought that we bring him in and see if potentially he could help us.”

By Colin Stephenson

colin.stephenson@newsday.comColinSNewsday

Colin Stephenson covers the Rangers for Newsday. He has spent more than two decades covering the NHL and just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.