The Rangers return home from a two-game road trip with their sights set on scoring their first goal and perhaps even earning their first win of the season at Madison Square Garden.
The Blueshirts made history by getting blanked in their first three home games of the new campaign.
The scoring woes continued on the road against Toronto, but the Blueshirts found some rhythm in a 4-3 win over Montreal on Saturday.
The Rangers will hope to continue that form as a slight favorite against the Minnesota Wild on Monday evening.
Rangers vs. Wild odds, prediction
The Wild are off to an interesting start this season.
Minnesota went 2-1 in its first three games, scoring 12 goals (not including the one awarded for winning the shootout) along the way.
The Wild boast some talismanic offensive players, but nobody expected Minnesota to keep up that scoring pace for the long haul. What stood out more than anything was that, even during the Wild’s hot start, they were getting most of their production on the power play.
Minnesota went 8-for-17 in its first three games of the season.
Betting on the NHL?
Once the power play came down to earth, Minnesota would be in trouble. The Wild finished 25th in the league in goals per game in 2024-25, and the roster hasn’t changed much from April to October.
Regression came quickly. The Wild scored a total of four goals over their next three contests, going 0-2-1 against the Stars, Capitals, and Flyers.
Minnesota now heads to Madison Square Garden against the Rangers, who are due for some regression the other way.
There are reasons to be concerned about how the Blueshirts have started the season, but they should be buoyed by the way they played — and finished — in Montreal.
More of that on Monday night should be too much for the Wild.
Not only is Minnesota not finding the net much at 5-on-5, but it also ranks near the bottom of the NHL in generating scoring chances.
That’s not a recipe for success against Igor Shesterkin and the Rangers.
The Play: Rangers -130 (FanDuel)
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Michael Leboff is a long-suffering Islanders fan, but a long-profiting sports bettor with 10 years of experience in the gambling industry. He loves using game theory to help punters win bracket pools, find long shots, and learn how to beat the market in mainstream and niche sports.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
