{"id":456742,"date":"2024-12-07T15:39:55","date_gmt":"2024-12-07T20:39:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/?p=456742"},"modified":"2024-12-07T15:39:55","modified_gmt":"2024-12-07T20:39:55","slug":"new-york-rangers-should-re-sign-promising-young-forward","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2024\/12\/07\/new-york-rangers-should-re-sign-promising-young-forward\/","title":{"rendered":"New York Rangers Should Re-Sign Promising Young Forward"},"content":{"rendered":"

Toronto is no doubt a hockey city, and arguably the center of the hockey universe. We have another young player with much potential born in the 6ix. This season will be the last of 22-year-old New York Rangers forward William Cuylle<\/a>‘s Entry Level Contract<\/a> that’s paying him $828,333 this season. But he deserves more. He is clearly on his way to an unprecedented season in his NHL career. Cuylle makes smart passes, has a high hockey I.Q., bolsters scoring, and is on pace for an NHL best in goals and points. The Rangers have very promising young players that could equal a promising future for this season and the Broadway Blueshirts <\/em>altogether!\u00a0So, here are some details as to why we say the New York Rangers should re-sign Cuylle.<\/p>\n

Rangers Forward Will Cuylle’s Playing Performance Lately<\/h2>\n

Although Cuylle has gone cold on goals in his last five games<\/a>, it is important to assess a forward’s (especially a young one’s) performance in ways beyond just offensive numbers. With three assists in his last five games, let’s take a deeper look at those and make a better assessment of his hockey intelligence.<\/p>\n

Assist In Nov. 30 Home Win Against the Montreal Canadiens<\/h3>\n

Assisting on the power play game-winner late in the third period is always a thrill. Approximately 24 seconds before the game could go to overtime with a tie, Cuylle was in just the perfect position to pass to fellow young guy and right-winger Kaapo Kakko<\/a>. It was certainly a smart pass, since not only was there an opening of ice between Cuylle and Kakko, but also between Kakko and Canadiens netminder Sam Montembeault<\/a>.\u00a0The passing alternatives would’ve had to be either through Canadiens traffic or to a Rangers player who would have to work through traffic in order to score.<\/p>\n

Assist In Nov. 29 Road Loss to the Philadelphia Flyers<\/a><\/h3>\n

A loss to a rival certainly hurts.\u00a0The\u00a0Blueshirts\u00a0<\/em>were in Philly when they suffered a 3-1 L in a game that included two goals from star Flyers right-winger Travis Konecny<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But let’s focus on star Rangers centreman Vincent Trocheck<\/a>‘s goal, and\u00a0another great example of Cuylle’s smart passes. Just prior to the goal, he had the puck beneath the lower offensive zone faceoff circle.\u00a0Flyers traffic ahead of him and to the right consisted of right-winger Garnet Hathaway<\/a>,\u00a0centreman Ryan Poehling<\/a>, and defenceman Cam York.\u00a0An alternative pass could’ve been to star Rangers winger Artemi Panarin<\/a>, although Hathaway could’ve intercepted this pass. Also, large Flyers defenceman Travis Sanheim<\/a> was by the net, in a good position to block a would-be Panarin shot, and Philly netminder Ivan Fedotov<\/a> was in a good position to make the save.\u00a0The alternative? Pass directly to the right to Trocheck.\u00a0Trocheck moved to the high slot and scored the wrister through Flyers traffic.<\/p>\n

Rangers Forward Will Cuylle Will Likely Reach A Career High Offensively This Season<\/h3>\n

The simple math says the New York Rangers forward is on pace for an NHL career year! In just 25 games<\/a> this year, he’s already notched 20 points (nine goals & 11 assists). At an 82-game pace, this would be approximately 66 points (30 goals & 36 assists). If he keeps this good pace up and stays healthy, that’s an easy NHL career season for the rising young star. In a whopping 81 games last regular season (2023-24), he notched just 21 points<\/a> (13 goals & eight assists). In less than a third that many games this year, he’s already about to beat that.<\/p>\n

Rangers Forward Will Cuylle Rising Up The Ranks Alongside Fellow Youngsters<\/h3>\n

At the time of writing, Cuylle sits on the\u00a0Blueshirts\u00a0<\/em>third forward lineup<\/a> with 25-year-old Czech centreman Filip Chytil<\/a> and the 23-year-old Finn Kakko. But the main youngster to compare to Cuylle is one of the Rangers’ stars – 23-year-old Alexis Lafreniere<\/a>. Lafreniere could potentially reach an NHL career high for points as well, still on pace for 62 points (about 26 goals & 36 assists) if he plays all 82 regular-season games (currently having 19 points, eight goals & 11 assists in 25 games<\/a> so far).<\/p>\n

Re-signing Cuylle is just one factor in how the young Rangers players will equal a bright future for the team.<\/p>\n

Main Photo: Danny Wild-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Toronto is no doubt a hockey city, and arguably the center of the hockey universe. We have another young player with much potential born in the 6ix. This season will be the last of 22-year-old New York Rangers forward William Cuylle‘s Entry Level Contract that’s paying him $828,333 this season. But he deserves more. He […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5243,"featured_media":458053,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[14,4547,4548],"tags":[48,6107,4444],"class_list":["post-456742","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rangers","category-hockey","category-nhl","tag-new-york-rangers","tag-new-york-rangers-analysis","tag-will-cuylle"],"modified_by":"Tommy Bennett","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456742","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5243"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=456742"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456742\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":458054,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456742\/revisions\/458054"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/458053"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=456742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=456742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=456742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}