Ooof that's rough. Lot of bad here
Spooner on the 2nd line?
Howden on the 2nd line?
Pionk on the 1st pair?
McQuaid playing at all?
Deangelo at wing?

Change all of that and you might have something.

Howden has been playing in all situationsover 15m per game, amazing on faceoffs over 54%, and he's surrounded by two experienced players. Spooner has not been that great this year, but i want to put him with hayes where he performed very well last year.

Pionk has been on the first pair for the rangers and has been their best defenseman through 10 games. The last 3 games he had 25+ min, 25+ min and 28 minutes.

McQuaid sucks i agree-- but they seem to prefer him over DeAngelo which brings me to my next point

DeAngelo at wing, he's an offensive defenseman who isn't getting any playing time.. he's too young to not be playing at all, shifting him to wing allows him to use his offense (specifically on the powerplay) and i think we can all agree he is a bad defenseman in his own zone but he may be a good two way forward for the fourth line. After all, he cannot be worse than McLeod

I'm just saying they should try it. Do i think Spooner deserves top 6 minutes? no but in balancing the lines and trying different things to jumpstart players you have to do a few things against the grain. Everyone knows rangers are rebuilding so it's not as much about results as it is about trying to figure out how the team can work together.

It'd be a better argument for you not to use playing time as a reasoning for why a player is good. I could say "Girardi was getting 23 minutes a game on top pair 2 years ago, therefore he was a top defenseman".

It seems like the numbers you've been looking at are just the basics so I'll help clue you in on some deeper stuff.

Howden has had a pretty miserable year following a good couple games. He's amongst our worst 3 forwards in both possession and expected goals for and against. He's a solid 4th liner right now.

Pionk has been absolutely atrocious in his own end regardless of D-partner, yielding the highest shots against, Shot attempts against and Shot Quality against in the last 4 games straight (btw, that's his rates against, which multiplied by his TOI looks really bad). A brutal run. He's had some good offense in a couple of those games which has helped make his miserable defensive play more tolerable, but that's about it. In 3 of the last 4 games (the one's where he's had the most prominent defensive role - the Rangers have been absolutely smacked in possession and given up at least 35 shots.

He's a solid 3rd pair guy.

McQuaid sucks and should be cut. I don't see the issue.

Deangelo at the moment is probably the 3rd -4th best dman on the roster. Not sure why you're moving him to wing. Completely disagree with the notion he's bad in his own end. In fact, he's been much better than Pionk. But don't let me just spew presumptions: Let's take a look at the numbers- Between last year and this one, If we take away all the anchors (O'Gara, Staal, Kampfer, Holden) that drive numbers down and see what Deangelo would be like with a half-decent partner- We see that Tony actually has the greatest shot suppression numbers on the roster. (crazy right? for a guy that is "bad in his own end" ) But let's be fair and do the same with Pionk - if we do that he ranks 10th in Dmen on the team over the last 2 years that have played 200 mins - offensively he does slightly better (6th). But yeah. Deangelo is pretty amazing and should be playing every day.

The notion of "jump starting" certain players is a confusing one. Spooner is one of the worst defensive forwards in the league and is only effective offensively with players who are better than him...that sounds like an anchor. You should trade anchors.