{"id":505164,"date":"2026-03-15T21:02:26","date_gmt":"2026-03-15T21:02:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/505164\/"},"modified":"2026-03-15T21:02:26","modified_gmt":"2026-03-15T21:02:26","slug":"towering-adam-edstrom-impresses-during-rangers-experiment-at-center","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/505164\/","title":{"rendered":"Towering Adam Edstrom impresses during Rangers’ experiment at center"},"content":{"rendered":"

Adam Edstrom was drafted as a center out of Sweden, even if the hulking 6-foot-7 forward has exclusively manned the wing since joining the Rangers\u2019 organization.<\/p>\n

That all changed Saturday night in Minnesota, when the 25-year-old Edstrom was moved back to the middle for the first time in the NHL, centering the fourth line in a 4-2 win over the Wild<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Rangers coach Mike Sullivan believed it was Edstrom\u2019s first time playing that position since his under-20 junior season in Sweden.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe wanted to see what it might look like if Eddy had the capability of playing in the middle,\u201d Sullivan said after the last-place Rangers posted a season-high fourth straight win. \u201cObviously, if you get a guy that\u2019s 6-7 that has the capacity to play the position, especially in a fourth-line role, he can certainly be hard to play against with his size, his mobility, his reach. He can lean on people. In practice [Friday], they were helping him. J.T. [Miller] and [Vincent Trocheck] and Mika [Zibanejad] were helping him on the faceoff circle. I think we\u2019ll continue to explore it with him.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"AdamAdam Edstrom celebrates after the Rangers\u2019 goal during their March 12 game against the Jets. NHLI via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Edstrom, who previously had taken only seven draws in his NHL career, won one of his four faceoffs against the Wild over 7:33 of ice-time.<\/p>\n

Sullivan admitted the coaching staff \u201ctried to protect\u201d Edstrom, by not sending his line out for any defensive-zone draws.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe hasn\u2019t played a lot of it most recently \u2026 but I thought [Edstrom] did a good job,\u201d Sullivan said. \u201cAs far as his ability to play down low in the D-zone, sometimes our wings and the nature of how we play within our concept, they end up down there sometimes anyways, so he has some familiarity with that position.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut obviously his size, his reach, his strength, down in the battle areas can be effective. He\u2019s hard to play against, just by nature of how big he is. And he can really skate. So we thought for all those reasons that we\u2019d explore it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Another consideration for making the move, Sullivan said, was because he didn\u2019t want to take rookie winger Jaroslav Chmelar out of the lineup.<\/p>\n

Thus, with Miller returning after a five-game injury absence, Edstrom was shifted inside and center Juuso Parssinen was scratched.<\/p>\n

\"AdamAdam Edstrom celebrates after a Rangers goal during their March 12 win. NHLI via Getty Images<\/p>\n

And Chmelar scored his second goal of the season.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe liked how Jaro was playing. We wanted to keep Jaro in the lineup,\u201d Sullivan said. \u201cWith some of the options that we had \u2014 and we talked about all the possibilities \u2014 we thought that we would explore this one.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tRead the expert take on the Blueshirts\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSign up for Inside the Rangers, a weekly Sports+ exclusive.\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\tThank you\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

It\u2019s certainly hard to argue with the recent results, with a 6-1-2 record since returning from the Olympic break entering Monday\u2019s home game against traded leading scorer Artemi Panarin and the Kings<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Sullivan was also encouraged by how the Rangers angrily came to the defense of goalie Igor Shesterkin when Minnesota\u2019s Joel Eriksson Ek took a swipe at him in the crease during Saturday\u2019s game.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor sure, I think these guys are playing hard for one another. I think they\u2019re having some fun. They feel good about what\u2019s going on,\u201d Sullivan said. \u201cObviously, when you win some game, that helps. We\u2019ve got some guys that are playing pretty well. They\u2019re scoring some goals, so they\u2019re getting rewarded for their efforts.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I\u2019m happy for them, because it\u2019s obviously been an up-and-down year. They\u2019ve been through a lot. There\u2019s a good feeling going through the team right now.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Adam Edstrom was drafted as a center out of Sweden, even if the hulking 6-foot-7 forward has exclusively…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":505165,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5111],"tags":[5,2310,3328,35,5190,5193,4,36,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-505164","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-rangers","8":"tag-hockey","9":"tag-mike-sullivan-nhl","10":"tag-new-york","11":"tag-new-york-rangers","12":"tag-newyork","13":"tag-newyorkrangers","14":"tag-nhl","15":"tag-rangers","16":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116235220766451300","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505164","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=505164"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505164\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/505165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=505164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=505164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=505164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}