Rangers need big night from Kaapo Kakko, Alexis Lafreniere to be start of ascent

Regarding the Rangers, who are somehow playing at a 116-point pace entering Friday’s match at the Garden against Vegas:

1. The two most positive developments out of Wednesday’s date in the desert could be the most encouraging and meaningful of the season if it represents the start of something and not just a one-off.

And that was the play of Kaapo Kakko and Alexis Lafreniere, the Ping-Pong Ball Twins, who both elevated their respective games when called upon to split the assignments left behind by Artemi Panarin.

Let’s face it. While the ultimate success of the rebuild surely depends on them, so does a lot of the present.

When No. 10 left the match for good 2:19 into the second period with an undefined lower-body issue, Lafreniere moved up to take his spot on the left with Ryan Strome and Dryden Hunt while Kakko stepped in on the first power-play unit.

Kakko, who had scored at five-on-five in the second period from the left porch, then got the 3-2 winner at 17:42 of the third period, right from the PP doorstep by converting Chris Kreider’s gorgeous feed. Lafreniere, meanwhile, was engaged throughout the match, using his body and moving his feet to disrupt and create.

Each responded to increased responsibility. Kakko’s 19:38 of ice time represented his second-highest of the season, most since No. 24 played 20:01 against the Devils on Nov. 14, and over a minute more than his next highest allotment of time.

Meanwhile, Lafreniere, whose ice time had been dwindling over the previous week, also received his second-most work of the season, his 17:00 only behind his high of 17:06 in Ottawa on Oct. 23 and also nearly a minute more than his next highest total.

We all have learned that every player’s development curve is different. We all know that the Rangers will have to be patient with Kakko, the 2019 second-overall; and with Lafreniere, first-overall a year later. Regardless of expectations, neither came to the NHL as a ready-made product. That has become obvious.

But that does not negate the reality that the Rangers need more from these poster boys of the rebuild than they have received. The Rangers need Kakko and Lafreniere to be productive and reliable. You may have noticed that even when at full strength, the Blueshirts are shy a top-sixer.

If Panarin is down for a stretch, and “day-to-day” could mean just about anything the way the organization so liberally tosses around that term, then the Rangers will need the Finn and the lad from Quebec to step up and seize the moment.

Wednesday was a good start. For the team’s sake, it needs to be more than that.

2. So two goals in the last four games from streak-scorer Mika Zibanejad, and that is promising. But No. 93 still has only two goals for the season at five-on-five. His last one came in Edmonton on Nov. 5, 18 games ago. That is just not going to make it.

Zibanejad has scored his two goals on 44 shots. That is kind of like when Derek Jeter went 0-for-32 at the plate in April of 2004. (Except Jeter was getting booed. Where was the R2spect?) But, no, you knew Jeter was going to keep swinging and you knew it was going to end. It’s going to end for Zibanejad, too, if he keeps shooting the puck.

Kakko’s second-period goal against the Coyotes represented the Kreider-Zibanejad-Kakko line’s first goal at five-on-five since Dec. 1, a stretch that encompassed seven games. No team can expect sustained success with that kind of five-on-five production from its top line.

It took Kakko a while to find a comfort zone playing earlier in the season with Panarin and Ryan Strome, No. 24 going without a point in his first seven games on that line before recording five points (3-2) in four games immediately before head coach Gerard Gallant rearranged his personnel. It took 11 games for Kakko to score a goal while playing with Kreider and Zibanejad.

3. Filip Chytil, on Wednesday a healthy scratch for the first time in more than two years, will likely be reinstated independent of Panarin’s status unless there’s more to the story beyond a dip in No. 72’s play.

I still do not understand why the Rangers haven’t experimented by moving Chytil to the wing, where he played some of his best hockey through a stretch of games in 2018-19. He’s not a natural playmaker, he doesn’t seem to have great vision in the middle but he does appear to have the attributes of a power winger.

Obviously the staff does not agree.

4. As first reported by colleague Mollie Walker, Sammy Blais underwent surgery on Thursday to repair the torn ACL he sustained on that sketchy collision in the corner with P.K. Subban on Nov. 14.