Urho Vaakanainen part of the Rangers plan to approach the loss of Adam Fox in injury

Defender’s Top Defender Loss While in the middle of a desperate battle for a playoff place is a huge problem.

Adam Fox was the leader of Rangers in time, with an average of over 23 minutes per match, and was the second goalscorer, with 48 points (43 assistants) in 58 games. He led the point on the top power play unit, played on the penalty, was second on the team in Takeways (30) and was one of only three players who played more than 15 minutes per game and had a positive/minus (+5).

However, the original of Jericho and the former winner of the Norris trophy, aged 26, will go out with what looked like a serious injury to the left shoulder, suffering in the third period against the islands. Therefore, Rangers will have to find a way to replace all his contributions to the team, starting with Friday’s match against Toronto Maple Leafs.

It will not be a unique solution.

“It will be more like a collective effort as a team,” said defender Urho Vaakanainen. “Obviously, I don’t think anyone, as a player, can really take their place, so to speak. He is an elite player, one of the best defenders in the league. So it is more of a next mentality and tries to play better as a team. ”

Plan A to replace Fox on Power Play was to go with a first -formed unit five before, Mika Zibanejad entered for Fox at the time. Replacing him on the punishment of killing he will see that Will Borgen will probably pick up most of Fox’s minutes. However, even in a power, Rangers hopes that Vaakanainen, which was an extra replacement of injury to the team in Finland for the 4 nations of the NHL, will also be part of the solution.

The 26-year-old, purchased from Anaheim in December, as part of the return package for Jacob Trouba, played exclusively on the third pair of defenses, on average 15:42 ice-time less of the team’s defenders. But in practice, on Thursday, coach Peter Laviolette chose to lift Vaakanainen in the first four in defense and to mate with Fox’s ordinary partner.

Laviolette chose to keep the duo K’andre Miller-Borgen together, then chose to keep Braden Schneider on the third pair, partnership with Zac Jones, who entered the band. Laviolette said that the familiarity Jones and Schneider have to play with each other so much in the last seasons have played a role in her thinking.

“That took into account,” he said. “I also know how he played” Vax “and this gives you a real good pair of defenders (with Lindgren) who are developed.”

Vaakanainen of 6-2, 205 kilograms was a choice from the first (18th in general) by Boston in the 2017 NHL project. He was part of the Finnish team that won the World Junior Championship in 2019 and spent four seasons transferring-before and back to the minor leagues, while trying to enter the NHL. Last season was his first full season in NHL, playing 68 games for Anaheim and scoring a goal.

This season, he has two goals, including the first game against the islands Tuesday, when he added two assistants and was named the first star of the game. His first goal of the season came on February 8, when he hit the head, with Cylle, besides Columbus’s goalkeeper, Elvis Merzlikins, to tie the score before Cylle wins late in the regulation.

The putting of Vaakanainen with Lindgren, with a single practice together, means that both players will have to do additional work by communicating with each other, making sure they know where they are on each other and who does what. There is also a ridge that Vaakanainen is a left -handed blow that plays the right side, which it hasn’t done much in recent years.

After all his years playing with Fox, a right, Lindgren acknowledged that he would be a little different with another left.

“I think it’s something you have to take into account, for sure,” Lindgren said. “You are a leftist, you will go to a right, you just don’t think about it. So switch your hands, you need to think a little. But I don’t think it’s so big. “

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