What Rangers hope to accomplish with Mike Sullivan’s new zone defense

On the first day of training camp, Vincent Trocheck peeled back the curtain on the system new Rangers coach Mike Sullivan is implementing. 

And according to the new alternate captain, the defensive zone is a lot different. 

“It’s a zone defense,” he said. “It’s a little bit less skating in the D-zone. It’s a lot of handoffs. I think it leaves you energy to play offense, while at the same time taking time and space away from the [opposing] offense when we’re in the D-zone. It’s not like a man-on-man system, where you’re just chasing your guy the entire shift, which a lot of time when you are doing that, it does take away energy for offense. 

“Any time you do turn the puck over, you might not have the legs to get to offense. Whereas, in this system, it’s more reading and reacting. You’re in your area basically.” 

It’s a quadrant defense like the one ex-head coach Peter Laviolette ran, but Trocheck said Sullivan’s gives the opposition less space, where the wingers are still able to cut off the leading pass from the defense. 

“If there is a breakdown,” he continued, “there’s situations where you have to read and react. The center is kind of the guy who is in the middle of the ice reading everything. And if there is an opportunity to jump on a puck, we go.” 

Artemi Panarin (lower-body injury) did not participate in the third day of training camp on Saturday. 

The Rangers cut the roster to 48 after Saturday’s session. 

Gavin Hain, Kyle Jackson, Zakary Karpa, Sullivan Mack, Chris Merisier-Ortiz, Cooper Moore, Hugo Ollas and Callum Tung were assigned to training camp in Hartford. 

Raoul Boilard, Artem Gonchar and Evan Passmore were returned to their respective junior teams.

Tim Lovell and Corbin Vaughan were also released from their tryouts.