The first unit hasn’t been scoring much, the second unit hasn’t been scoring at all, so there were worse things that Peter Laviolette could have done than throwing the third unit on the ice with about 15 seconds remaining in the Blueshirts’ first power play late in the first period of Monday’s Garden confrontation with the Panthers.
The third power-play unit was actually the Rangers’ checking unit as designed for this game by the head coach. The line with Barclay Goodrow between Will Cuylle and Jimmy Vesey had been assigned to mark the Sam Bennett unit with Nick Cousins and Matthew Tkachuk on the wings.
Laviolette was coaching defense-first when he tossed the Goodrow guys on with 15-20 seconds remaining on the advantage.
The Rangers had scored just three power-play goals after the first unit had been replaced all season, the last one on Dec. 19 at Toronto in Game 30. Thirty-one games had come and gone without PP2 sprinkling one in.
