Rangers Week Ahead: Quest for 1st home win continues
Stop us if you’ve read this before: The New York Rangers begin the new week seeking their first home win of the season at Madison Square Garden.
They’ll have two chances during a busy four-game week: The struggling Nashville Predators come to town Monday, and after traveling to Tampa Bay on Wednesday and Columbus on Saturday, the Rangers host the Detroit Red Wings on Sunday.
The home losses are bad enough. Yet what’s driving players, coaches, fans, and even MSG analyst Steve Valiquette crazy is their inability to put the puck in the net at The Garden. The Rangers were shut out twice more at home last week by Metropolitan Division rivals – 3-0 against the Carolina Hurricanes on Tuesday and a 5-0 embarrassment to the New York Islanders on Saturday. They are 0-6-1 on home ice, with five of the seven losses by shutout.
The Rangers called up their best prospect, 20-year-old forward Gabe Perreault, from AHL Hartford on Sunday in an effort to spark the offense. Perreault, their first-round pick (No. 23 overall) in the 2023 NHL Draft, leads Hartford with five goals and 10 points in nine games. Expect him in the lineup and playing top-six minutes this week.
And it looks like Vincent Trocheck will be activated off LTIR this week, after he missed 14 games with an upper-body injury.
Luckily for the Rangers, they are the best road team in the NHL at 7-1-1, including their 4-1 win in Detroit on Friday.
At 7-7-2, the Blueshirts begin the week at NHL-.500, tied for 12th in the Eastern Conference in point percentage, as the season nears the one-quarter mark. Happily for coach Mike Sullivan and his team, they’re no more than a good week away from moving into a wild-card spot or even third place in the division.
But to get there, the home losses have to stop – now.
Who’s hot
Jonathan Quick was superb in the Rangers’ win at Detroit, making 32 saves and earning his 407th career win, tying him with Hall of Famer Glenn Hall for 12th all-time. In four starts this season, the 39-year-old goalie is 3-1-0 with a 1.26 goals-against average and .950 save percentage.
Who’s not
J.T. Miller did not have a point in three games last week. With eight points (three goals, five assists) in 16 games, he’s on pace for a 41-point season; that’s tough to imagine for a player who’s averaged more than a point a game in each of the past four seasons.
Rangers lookahead this week includes …
Four games in seven days, including a weekend back-to-back.
Nashville Predators at Rangers (Nov. 10, 7 p.m. ET; MSG)
The Predators were one of the League’s biggest disappointments last season, after their buying spree in the summer of 2024, and they’ve showed little improvement in 2025-26. They’re 5-8-4, including 0-2-2 in their past four games.
Steven Stamkos, Nashville’s biggest signing before last season, has just three goals and one assist, is minus-7, and yet to score a goal at 5-on-5. The longtime Tampa Bay Lightning star is nearly a point-a-game player against the Rangers in his career (19 goals, 43 points in 44 games), with 10 of the goals on the power play.
Juuse Saros, who figures to start in goal, has a 1.76 goals-against average and two shutouts against the Rangers, including a 2-0 win at Nashville last Dec. 17. Quick shut out the Predators in the return match at the Garden on March 2, though he’s just 7-14-3 against them in his career.
Rangers at Tampa Bay Lightning (Nov. 12, 7 p.m.; TNT)
Unfortunately for the Rangers, they’re catching the Lightning at the wrong time. After a poor start, Tampa Bay has won seven of its past eight games, including a 3-2 win against the Washington Capitals in their most recent contest Saturday.
This is expected to be a battle between two of the League’s premier goalies, each from Russia. Tampa Bay’s Andrei Vasilevskiy has a 7-8-2 mark against the Rangers, and a 2.75 GAA and .915 save percentage. Igor Shesterkin is 7-3-1 against the Lightning with a 2.26 GAA and .924 save percentage, though he was lifted in the second period of New York’s most recent visit to Tampa, a 6-2 loss last Dec. 28.
New York lost its past two games at the newly renamed Broadmark International Arena and is 3-5-1 since the beginning of 2018. To continue their success on the road, the Rangers must shut down three-time NHL scoring champ Nikita Kucherov, who has 10 goals and 37 points in 30 games against them.
Rangers at Columbus Blue Jackets (Nov. 15, 7 p.m. MSG)
The Rangers make their first of two visits to Nationwide Arena this season, looking to extend their recent success in Columbus. They won both visits last season and are 4-2-0 in their past six trips.
Artemi Panarin feasts against the team he played for prior to signing with the Rangers as a free agent in the summer of 2019, piling up 15 goals, 30 points and a plus-12 rating in 22 career games against the Blue Jackets. Quick, who could get the start in the first of a weekend back-to-back set, also thrives against Columbus; he’s 20-10-1 with a 2.61 GAA in 31 games.
If the Blue Jackets continue to alternate goaltenders, the Rangers will face Elvis Merzlikins. That could be good news; the Latvian goaltender is 2-6-1 against them with a 3.03 GAA despite a .916 save percentage.
Detroit Red Wings at Rangers (Nov. 16, 7 p.m. MSG)
The Rangers have had the Red Wings number since the start of the 2023-24 season. The 4-1 win in Detroit was their seventh straight victory against their longtime rival, who appropriately are the visitors on Original Six Night at The Garden – the two teams entered the NHL together in 1926. The Blueshirts are 6-0-2 against the Red Wings at The Garden since the start of the 2019-20 season.
Shesterkin has never lost to the Red Wings in regulation. He’s 5-0-1 lifetime with a 1.48 GAA and .943 save percentage. Panarin continued his career-long success against the Red Wings with a goal and two assists in the win at Little Caesars Arena, giving him 17 goals and 44 points in just 26 games.
Neither of the Red Wings goaltenders has a winning record against New York. John Gibson is 3-4-3 with a 3.29 GAA and .895 save percentage in 11 games, and ex-Rangers goalie Cam Talbot, the loser in the game at Detroit, is 6-7-0 with a 3.04 GAA and .896 save percentage in 13 appearances.
