SUNRISE, Fla. — When Alex Wennberg was a youngster breaking into the league with Columbus, his teammates saw the offensive ability that made him a first-round draft pick. For whatever reason, it never fully translated to games. He never scored more than 13 goals in a season with the Blue Jackets. And while that didn’t stop him from being a useful player, former Blue Jackets teammate Nick Foligno described him as someone who “kind of always kept you wanting more.”
“I think we were hoping he was going to be a bit more of a point producer in Columbus, but I think he was really good in that two-way center role,” Foligno said. “Maybe he was a little more raw when he was with us, but now he understands who he is and he plays to that at all times.”
“We were kind of getting on him about shooting more, but he was always looking to pass,” added Avalanche forward Jack Johnson, who was with Columbus for the first four years of Wennberg’s career. “Very unselfish player.”
Well, Wennberg wasn’t looking to be unselfish after winning a faceoff in overtime of Game 3 of the Eastern Conference final. Instead, as Kaapo Kakko and Jack Roslovic fought a puck away from Florida’s Dmitry Kulikov, the veteran center drifted to the net. Florida lost him — “maybe there was some sort of breakdown,” coach Peter Laviolette said — and he stood alone in front of Sergei Bobrovsky as Ryan Lindgren wristed a shot toward the net. Wennberg tipped the puck off the top part of his stick shaft, and it soared to the right of Bobrovsky’s shoulder and into the back of the net.
ALEX WENNBERG GAME WINNER!!!
NEW YORK HAS TAKEN A 2-1 SERIES LEAD #StanleyCup pic.twitter.com/rJ6tCxjwjY
— NHL (@NHL) May 26, 2024
The skill Wennberg’s Columbus teammates saw years ago flashed at the right time for the Rangers, who now lead the Panthers 2-1 in the series.
“You see the puck go to the net, and it’s this burst of energy, burst of joy,” Wennberg said after New York’s 5-4 win.
He threw his arms in the air and turned toward Kaapo Kakko, who was a healthy scratch in Game 2 but was back in the lineup with Jimmy Vesey hurt. The two hugged, and their Rangers teammates quickly joined them. For the second game in a row, the Rangers had won in overtime.
General manager Chris Drury acquired Wennberg from Seattle at the trade deadline, sending the Kraken a 2024 second-round pick and a conditional 2025 fifth-rounder. He immediately slotted in as New York’s third-line center, filling the void left by Filip Chytil’s early-season suspected concussion. Chytil has since returned in the playoffs but has played on the wing.
Wennberg’s brief time with the Rangers has been eventful both on and off the ice. His car got stolen (and eventually recovered) being shipped from Seattle to New York, and he and his wife, Felicia, welcomed their second child shortly after the trade. The 29-year-old has remained steady throughout, even if he’s not a flashy player.
“He’s added a lot of depth to our team and has been great on faceoffs, (penalty kill),” Vincent Trocheck said. “He’s doing a lot of the little things really well.”
Added Foligno: “He’s now just found that role and plays it well. You appreciate players like that, and you’ll need them down the stretch.”
Throughout the playoffs, the Wennberg-led third line has had strong analytics and has sustained zone time against opponents. It has struggled, though, to put pucks in the net. In Game 1 of this series, for example, Wennberg had a glorious chance in front of the net but couldn’t finish.
Sunday was the opposite. The Rangers had only 31.58 percent of the expected goal share with Roslovic-Wennberg-Kakko on the ice, but the group generated the game’s crucial goal.
We were talking about sifting pucks in and we were able to sift that one in,” Laviolette said. “You still have to get a piece of it, a redirect. (Wennberg) was in a good spot for a screen or redirect, little bit of everything, and was able to get it done.”
Though he’s never won a Stanley Cup, Wennberg is no stranger to the playoffs. He played 22 postseason games with Columbus and was on the Blue Jackets for their only series win in franchise history, the historic 2019 sweep of the Presidents’ Trophy-winning Lightning. He played a series for the Panthers in 2021 before signing with Seattle, where he helped the Kraken upset the Avalanche in 2023.
“Two-hundred-foot player, has good skill, can play with top guys: good all-around player,” said Colorado coach Jared Bednar, who coached Wennberg as a minor leaguer with the Columbus organization. He added with a smirk that Wennberg, “played really well against us in the playoffs last year, which I didn’t love.”
“He can do all the little things right,” said former Seattle teammate Daniel Sprong, now with Detroit. “You never really see him panic out there. I think he’s an underrated player in this league.”
Wennberg’s defensive responsibility has been his main asset in New York, and he helped cover the void left by Vesey’s injury on the penalty kill. The Rangers, who were badly outplayed in the latter part of Game 3, needed more than that Sunday. With zero goals this series from stars Artemi Panarin, Mika Zibanejad, Chris Kreider or Adam Fox, secondary scoring has been crucial. Barclay Goodrow and Alexis Lafrenière provided two apiece Sunday.
Wennberg took care of the exclamation point.
“This is a team where it doesn’t matter who’s the hero; it doesn’t matter who does it,” he said afterward. “Obviously it’s a great feeling, great for the confidence, but I’m just happy about the team.”
(Photo: Joel Auerbach / Getty Images)
