The arrival of two-time Stanley Cup-winning head coach Mike Sullivan gave New York Rangers followers a renewed sense of pleasure for the 2025-26 NHL season. He introduced quick credibility and a successful mindset to the group with the hope he may get the workforce again on observe after the bitter disappointment that was the 2024-25 season.
Thus far, issues should not going as deliberate.
Particularly on house ice, the place the Rangers fell to 0-4-1 this season (and 3-4-2 general) on Thursday night time in an unsightly 6-5 additional time loss in opposition to the San Jose Sharks.
Traditionally unhealthy begin on house ice for Rangers
With Thursday’s loss, the Rangers at the moment are winless by way of their first 5 house video games, one thing that has not occurred to the franchise for the reason that 1943-44 season.
Whereas that general document at house is unhealthy sufficient, it’s truly even worse than that.
Not solely have the Rangers did not win a sport at house, however they didn’t even rating a single objective of their first three house video games, getting shut out in three consecutive video games. That shutout streak lastly ended on Monday, after they scored a few minutes into their sport in opposition to the Minnesota Wild, after which didn’t rating once more.
Coming into play on Thursday, that they had only one objective in 4 house video games, whereas being outscored by a 9-1 margin.
On Thursday, the offense lastly arrived with 5 objectives, however that was accompanied by their sloppiest defensive effort of the season the place that they had no reply for the Sharks and Macklin Celebrini.
The second-year standout recorded a hat trick and completed with 5 factors, aiding on Will Smith’s game-winning objective.
What makes this such an unsightly loss for the Rangers is that San Jose is the kind of workforce they need to be beating. The Sharks entered Thursday’s sport as the one winless workforce within the NHL, they usually had gained simply seven of their earlier 46 video games going again to the second half of the 2024-25 season.
You can’t make the playoffs or win a championship in October. However you may make it extremely laborious on your self on the subject of truly attending to the playoffs. The Rangers should not doing themselves any favors within the standings, and they’re doing even fewer favors on the subject of convincing their followers that the 2024-25 season was some sort of a fluke.
