Rangers remain winless at home after 6-5 OT loss to Sharks: key takeaways
After scoring one goal in their first four home games this season, the New York Rangers put up a five spot against the San Jose Sharks on Thursday night at Madison Square Garden. Yet, even that offensive explosion wasn’t enough to catapult the Rangers to their first win on home ice, after the Sharks defeated them 6-5 in overtime.
The Rangers (3-4-2) are now winless at MSG (0-4-1) and will remain that way through the season’s first month since they close out October with a long road trip out west. They fly to Calgary on Friday no doubt wondering how they didn’t come away with a victory against a Sharks team that hadn’t won at all in 2025-26, until Will Smith buried a Macklin Celebrini feed from the left circle 1:37 into overtime Thursday.
Celebrini looked the part of the League’s next superstar, recording his second hat trick and second five-point game in the NHL. The 19-year-old center, the No. 1 overall pick in the 2024 draft, was robbed by Igor Shesterkin moments before he won a puck battle and then set up Smith’s game-winner.
Taylor Raddysh had a hat trick for the Rangers, and now leads them with four goals. Mika Zibanejad and Juuso Parssinen also scored for the Rangers, and J.T. Miller added two assists. Shesterkin finished with 19 saves, and allowed more than two goals for the first time in seven starts this season.
Smith scored his first two goals of the season and added two assists for the Sharks (1-4-2). Adam Gaudette also scored a goal, and William Eklund had three assists. Alex Nedeljkovic made 22 saves.
Just as they did in a 3-1 loss to the Minnesota Wild on Monday, the Rangers had a brutal first period and were badly outplayed in the opening 20 minutes Thursday. It started when Gaudette was left all alone to the side of the Rangers net to hammer home Collin Graf’s pass from behind the cage just 1:58 into the game.
The Sharks made it 2-0 at 6:17 when Celebrini scored his first of the night, pinballing a power-play rebound off Rangers defensemen Will Borgen and Matthew Robertson before the puck found its way past Shesterkin.
That goal came six seconds after Adam Fox was whistled for a hooking minor, and less than a minute after a heavyweight fight at center ice between Matt Rempe and Ryan Reaves. That fight proved costly for the Rangers, when Rempe was ruled out for the rest of the game with an upper-body injury.
Raddysh’s first goal of the game at 14:19 cut New York’s deficit to one. But Celebrini scored a beauty with 8.1 seconds remaining before the first intermission to make it 3-1.
The Rangers flipped the script in the second period, but again they surrendered a late-goal right before the intermission to undermine much of their good work.
Zibanejad finished off an Alexis Lafreniere cross-crease pass for a power-play goal at 4:04. And 2:43 later, Parssinen tied the game with his second goal of the season, a neat finish past Nedeljkovic.
With a power-play goal and one at even strength already on the score sheet in the second period, all the Rangers needed was a short-handed goal, right? And Raddysh delivered that shortie at 12:10, looking off Zibanejad on a 2-on-1 rush, before wiring a left-wing shot past Nedeljkovic to put the Rangers up 4-3.
However, Celebrini beat the buzzer again, this time with 5.8 seconds to spare, and the game was tied 4-4 heading into the third period.
The Rangers killed off a 5-on-3 Sharks power play, and then the remaining 5-on-4, seconds before Smith scored an even-strength goal from the low slot to put the Sharks back up 5-4 at 6:31 of the third.
But Raddysh answered back and completed his second career hat trick at 11:50, when he hammered a right-wing slap shot off the rush into the back of then net to tie the game once again.
Key takeaways after Rangers lose 6-5 in overtime to Sharks
1. Causes for concern
It’s not just that the Rangers remain winless through five games at the World’s Most Famous Arena. Nor is it the fact that they scored five goals against a bottom-feeder in the NHL standings, one that finished last overall the past two seasons and could do so again in 2025-26, and still lost.
No, there’s plenty more that concerns Rangers coach Mike Sullivan. Starting with recent trends to start games slowly, and allow crushing goals late in periods. In case you forgot, those were staples of the Rangers undoing last season under a different coaching staff.
“It’s a lack of awareness, situational play, managing the game the right way,” Sullivan explained postgame. “Controlling those situations is how you win. We obviously have to learn how to win”
And then there’s this. Miller, the Rangers captain, admitted that the Blueshirts “didn’t really respect our opponent” on Thursday.
Yikes. How concerning is that mindset, coach?
“Very. This is a good league, and there are good players on every team,” Sullivan stated firmly. “If you don’t bring a certain diligence to your game every night, you run the risk of being beaten. You more than likely will.”
2. ‘Piss poor’
One day after Sullivan praised the Rangers for their commitment to play sound team defense this season, they looked atrocious, taking a page right out of last season’s playbook. Blown coverages, lost puck battles, you name it. And, unfortunately for the Rangers, their worst collective showing on the defensive side of the puck happened on the same night that Shesterkin wasn’t at his best, either.
That’s not a winning recipe. So, even though the Rangers scored five goals, including some beauties off the rush, and held a substantial 12-3 advantage in high-danger chances, per Natural Stat Trick, they still lost.
“That’s pretty piss poor out of us, and you know, not the way we want to play hockey,” an irritated Fox said. “So there’s really, really not much to say.”
3. Their kids or ours?
That’s probably a rhetorical question because the Sharks’ young guns were the driving force behind the win Thursday. And the Rangers’ kids, who are older and more experienced? Well, they didn’t quite keep up with Celebrini, Smith, Eklund, et al. That is, those that remain with the Rangers.
In fact, you can argue that this group of young Sharks, a group that also includes Michael Misa, the No. 2 overall pick in this year’s draft who contributed an assist Thursday, is what the Rangers hoped Alexis Lafreniere, Kaapo Kakko, Filip Chytil, K’Andre Miller, and Co. were going to look like back in the day.
Now, it’s possible this Sharks group doesn’t age well either, because it’s hard to predict what exactly will happen. Perhaps they get broken up after a few disappointing seasons, too. But they sure looked exciting and that they’re going to be the real deal for quite a long time.
It’s not apples to apples, but watching Lafreniere and Celebrini share the same ice, there’s no comparison which former No. 1 overall pick you’d rather have. That doesn’t make Lafreniere a bad player by any stretch. But he’s not — and will not be — a superstar. Maybe not even an All-Star.
Time will tell about Gabe Perreault, knocking on New York’s door down at Hartford, and Malcolm Spence, off to a hot start as a freshman at Michigan. And even Noah Laba, who logged a quiet 10:28 TOI for the Blueshirts.
But right now, Thursday night at The Garden? You have to prefer the youth on the Sharks.
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