Rangers sticking with big-name first line in battle vs. Kraken

SEATTLE — Head coach Mike Sullivan liked what he saw from the line changes he made to finish the Rangers’ eventual overtime win against the Oilers on Thursday night in Edmonton.

Though almost every other line scored, the newly constructed top unit of Artemi Panarin, J.T. Miller and Mika Zibanejad appeared to be the inspiration behind the changes. Not just the inspiration, but the starting point for the formation of the rest of the forward lines.

“We thought we’d practice with it again today and see where it goes,” Sullivan said Friday before the Rangers’ matchup vs. the Kraken on Saturday night. “Obviously, the response we had in the third period may warrant giving it a chance. We haven’t done it to this point for reasons. We’re looking for a level of balance that we think is required to win. But sometimes, how you envision lines to play out and how they actually play out in real terms are two different things.

“We think long and hard about this stuff. We’re trying to put complementary skill sets together and line combinations that we think, ‘Well, this should work just based on logic,’ but it’s not always the case, as we know. You don’t actually know until you watch it.”

With such a front-loaded top line, the second unit features Will Cuyle, Noah Laba and Alexis Lafreniere. Part of what made Sullivan so comfortable with giving Laba the second-line center job was how well the rookie has performed as of late.

Conor Sheary, Juuso Parssinen and Taylor Raddysh made up the third line, while the fourth unit remained intact with Adam Edstrom, Sam Carrick and Jonny Brodzinski.

“They’re talented guys,” Sullivan said of the top line. “JT and Mika have played a lot together, they’ve talked a lot about the chemistry that they have. Obviously, Bread has a body of work in the league that suggests he’s a pretty talented guy offensively. They’re three of our most talented offensive players. I think part of the logic was [that] although they’ve created a fair amount of scoring opportunities, it’s been a little bit of a struggle to find the back of the net.

“I’ve been talking with the coaching staff for a number of days about this, potentially putting them together to see if maybe we can help them break out of it a little bit if we put them all together. We hadn’t done it until [Thursday] night, but that’s something that we’ve had on the table for a couple of weeks.”

Since the Kraken joined the league in 2021-22, the Rangers have points in seven of their eight meetings.