Remember when the Rangers didn’t score a single goal on home ice until their fourth game of the season at Madison Square Garden?
That set the tone for the 2025-26 campaign, and not in the way the Blueshirts wanted.
For a majority of the season, the Garden was a playground for opposing teams who ventured to the World’s Most Famous Arena to embarrass, bully and tease the Rangers like kids in a schoolyard. Clubs had their way with the insecure Rangers, and reveled in it.
They were shut out two more times before capturing their first win on home ice in their eighth game. Their 0-6-1 start at MSG was the worst in franchise history, while their winning record on the road looked like it belonged to another team.
But it was so much more than the disparity in wins and losses. The Rangers could barely put up a fight at home. Offense wasn’t just hard to come by, it was painstakingly difficult to generate amid their one-and-done entries into the zone, a lack of energy and an overarching dysfunction.
The Rangers became the first team in NHL history to suffer six shutout losses through 17 home games.
It was bad. Really bad. It weighed on everybody. The futility at home hovered over the team all season long and acted as a sort of premeditated expectation. Fans booed incessantly, and who could blame them considering the prices they paid to be there only to not hear the goal song once?
This current season-long homestand, however, has been the polar opposite of what everyone had come to expect from the Rangers at MSG.
“You get the sense of what the Garden is like when you compete hard,” head coach Mike Sullivan said amid his team’s 5-1 stretch entering their final home game of the season Wednesday night against the playoff-bound Sabres. “And the fan base, and they value and appreciate your work ethic and your competitive spirit out there.”
To put it in perspective, the Rangers mustered only four regulation wins through the first 34 home games of the season. They are already up to five in this seven-game homestand.
This encouraging streak — filled with rookie milestones and moments — has ensured the Rangers avoid tying the 2003-04 team’s record for the fewest home-ice wins in a season of 80 or more games.
The Rangers couldn’t buy a goal through the first couple of months of the season, but they’ve scored three or more in each of their most recent wins to outscore opponents 27-8 over the past six games. Their one loss was a one-goal defeat to the Canadiens.
Certain rookie additions to the lineup — such as Adam Sykora, Jaroslav Chmelar and Gabe Perreault — have bolstered the offense in more ways than one.
Perreault posted his first career NHL hat trick this past weekend in his 49th game, becoming the fourth Rangers rookie in the past 30 years to score a hat trick and one of five NHL rookies this season to record one. His three multipoint games are tied for the second most among all NHL rookies, whom he has led in points (17) and goals (7) since March 17.
After Will Cuylle recorded his first hat trick Sunday, the day after Perreault, the Rangers had a player score a hat trick in two consecutive games for the first time since 2016 and on consecutive days for the first time since 1982.
The last time the Rangers had hat tricks in consecutive games was Matt Puempel (Dec. 29, 2016, at Arizona) and Chris Kreider (Dec. 31, 2016, at Colorado).
Sunday’s 8-1 win over the Capitals at MSG was their largest of the season.
Oh, and a riveting Igor Shesterkin goalie fight was mixed in with all this rare home success.
The Rangers are doing what they can to salvage the pride of Madison Square Garden this season.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
