Michael Del Zotto hasn't impre sed his new coach. At all, really. I Kevin Austin Jr. Jersey have been told he is a much better player, Alain Vigneault said of the Rangers' 23-year-old defenseman. I have not seen that on a consistent enough basis. Well see how he responds. Rough translation: They told me he was good, and he's not . What Del Zotto (one points, three a sists) is responding to is a three-game stint in the pre s box. He's likely to return on Thursday night against the Dallas Stars. All things considered, Del Zotto's even-strength play hasn't nece sarily fallen off all that much since last season. He's just being used differently; with Marc Staal back at full strength, Del Zotto is playing on the third pairing. That means le s minutes against worse players. Here's Del Zotto's even-strength usage chart from last season, . The size of the bubble represents ice time. The bluer the bubble, the more shots a player's team takes when he's on the ice. The higher a bubble, the better competition a player faces. As the bubble moves farther right, it signifies more offensive-zone shifts. Here's Del Zotto's chart so far from this season: Weaker competition, more offensive-zone starts and a slightly more positive impact on po se sion. That's not a disaster. Neither are his scoring numbers, relatively speaking: he averaged .80 even-strength points per 60 minutes last season, and he's at .78 in 2013-14. His shooting percentage has actually risen from 3.7 to 4.0, but that's still way down from 8.8 in 2011-12, when he scored 10 goals in 77 games. If that's what Vigneault is expecting, he shouldn't hold his breath. The most obvious difference between this season and last: the power play. In 46 games last season, Del Zotto produced eight a sists (3.49 points per 60 minutes). In 2013, he has one a sist in 16 games (1.42 points per 60 minutes). His average time with the unit has dropped from 2:54 to 2:41 per game, but he still leads the team. If he were producing at last season's rate, things would look a lot betteractually, he'd look like a third-pairing power-play specialist, which is what he probably should be. In the meantime, Del Zotto's name will keep coming up in trade rumors. "Five or six" teams have asked about him, and he'd "probably embrace a change," . He's in the second and final year of a contract that carries a $2.55 million cap hit. Jagger LaRoe Jersey