- The Rangers went 14-20-7 at Madison Square Garden last season and finished last in the East
- Ten of New York’s first 17 games this season are at home
- Read below for Mike Sullivan’s explanation and the Rangers’ new-look top six
The Rangers have a Madison Square Garden problem, and the schedule is not easing them into it.
New York plays 10 of its first 17 games at home this season. Most teams would take that draw. A group that went 14-20-7 at the Garden last year and finished last in the Eastern Conference gets to treat it as an early exam.
Last season came apart at home right away. The Rangers dropped their first seven home games at 0-6-1, a franchise record for futility, and were shut out five times in the stretch.
Their first win at the Garden did not arrive until November 10 against Nashville. By late February they sat 6-15-4 in their own building, and the season ended with a 14-20-7 home mark against a 20-19-2 record on the road.
Mike Sullivan spent much of that run insisting his team was playing some of its best hockey. The staff went through the split afterward and landed on scoring, or the absence of it, as the thing that kept feeding the pressure. New York averaged 2.54 goals per game across 41 home dates.
Sullivan was asked what keeps it from happening a second time:
“I believe that if we focus on the task at hand, stay in the moment, we don’t get overwhelmed by circumstances, don’t dwell on the past and we try to get better every day, put our best game on the ice, that the results will take care of themselves,” Sullivan told NHL.com’s Dan Rosen.
The club is selling the home slate hard, too. Its countdown post to opening night is a clip of the Garden with “HOME ICE > SITTING AT HOME” stamped across the middle of it:
Chris Drury reshaped the roster around that problem. He sent a 2026 first-rounder, a 2026 third and a conditional 2028 first to Vegas for Pavel Dorofeyev, then handed him seven years and $77 million.
Dorofeyev scored 37 goals last season and finished second in the NHL with 20 on the power play. Vegas leaned on him next to Jack Eichel, who assisted on 10 of those 37.
Vincent Trocheck went to Utah on July 1 for Sean Durzi, Cole Beaudoin and a 2027 third. J.T. Miller moves back to primary center, and second-year center Noah Laba is in line for the defensive shifts Trocheck used to eat.
Marcus Pettersson, Joonas Korpisalo, Oliver Bjorkstrand and Eeli Tolvanen all landed in the same stretch of the summer.
Ten of the first 17 games are at the Garden, so the Rangers will find out early whether last season was a fluke or a pattern.
