Pavel Buchnevich making it hard for Rangers to even ponder trade

Part II of a series analyzing the New York Rangers Pavel Buchnevich was selected 75th overall in 2013 by the Rangers, and ranks 14th in goals and 15th in points among the players drafted that year, and yet there is the expectation — if not demand — that No. 89 should produce more. Or, if …

Part II of a series analyzing the New York Rangers

Pavel Buchnevich was selected 75th overall in 2013 by the Rangers, and ranks 14th in goals and 15th in points among the players drafted that year, and yet there is the expectation — if not demand — that No. 89 should produce more.

Or, if not necessarily produce more, then at least to be more visible and more involved on a more consistent basis, and hang on a second, I think I will need to copy and paste this sentence into Chris Kreider’s evaluation.

But that was exactly what Buchnevich did after Kreider went down with a broken foot in Philadelphia on Feb. 28 and was replaced on the team’s highest scoring line by Phil Di Giuseppe on Mika Zibanejad’s left side.

And not only did Buchnevich record two goals and six assists in six games without No. 20, he was more engaged in the battle areas on the boards, in the corners and in front of the net while also playing a more direct north-south game.

Indeed, he scored the tying goal with 13 seconds remaining in regulation in the Rangers’ last game, a 3-2 overtime defeat in Colorado on March 11, by going to the net on a give-and-go exchange with Artemi Panarin and beating big, strong Nikita Zadorov to the spot for a midair redirect that gave his team its 79th point of the season.

Josh Anderson couldn’t have done it any better.

The reference to the Columbus winger applies because in a league of styles, the Rangers have more finesse-oriented, creative-type forwards than straight-line, combative power wingers who can both turn defensemen on the rush and force defensemen to turn their heads against the forecheck.

And so, yes, there has been some discussion within the front office — how serious is unclear — about whether the team would be better off with a prototypical north-south forward rather than one with Buchnevich’s skill set.

But the team has never come close to dealing the winger, who already had established personal bests with 30 assists and 46 points during the completed portion of the schedule, with his 16 goals five shy of the 21 he recorded in 2018-19.

And one of the primary reasons is Buchnevich’s compatibility both on and off the ice with Zibanejad and Kreider. These guys like each other, they really like each other, they like playing as a unit, and they give David Quinn the ability to carve those first-line numbers of 20, 93 and 89 into the coach’s wall.

So much is uncertain, but when hockey and the Rangers return, this is not: Igor Shesterkin as the No. 1 in goal, Kreider-Zibanejad-Buchnevich as the first line and Ryan Lindgren-Adam Fox as the top defensive pair. Artemi Panarin is rather certain, too.

Buchnevich is more of a distributer than a sniper. That’s what everyone says and that’s the way he plays the game, though I have to say that my enduring image of Buchnevich is him firing darts from the circles as a rookie, notably the one he scored in Boston for his first career goal on Nov. 5, 2016. Seems like if he had the inclination, he could be a Shooter.

To that end, he did shoot at a higher rate this year, getting 2.2 shots on net per game after coming into the season averaging 1.86 per. His attempt rate increased, too, to 3.7 per from 3.3. Perhaps imperceptible, but a step.

The thing, too, is that Buchnevich was the fifth option on the four-forward, first power-play unit, getting an average of 2:18 per on the man-advantage while Panarin averaged 3:44; Zibanejad 3:40; Kreider 3:28; and Ryan Strome, 2:57. The league leader in average power-play time was, predictably, Alex Ovechkin at 4:53 per.

(Interlude: Listen to this: in 2005-06, Ilya Kovalchuk was on for 8:11 per game on the power play for the Thrashers, the highest total since the NHL began recording such matters in 1997-98. Ovechkin might have passed Wayne Gretzky by now with 8:11 of power-play time per game.)

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Of Buchnevich’s 46 points, 32 came at five-on-five, with 14 primary assists of his total 21, per Natural Stat Trick. He tracks well in meaningful, publicly available underlying numbers. If his goal number was somewhat down, that traces to a 10.8 shooting percentage that was below the 13.9 career mark he brought into the season.

It is not necessarily about that, though. It is about doing the work off the puck and minimizing the pouty, slumped-shoulder body language that far too often accompanies a missed scoring chance. It is about being consistently engaged and forcing himself to do the little things that might not be in his nature.

Still, this was a season of progress. And Josh Anderson wouldn’t fit as well, anyway, with Zibanejad and Kreider.