TORONTO — OK, so things are a little sloppy to start the season. But this sloppy, and this bad? The Rangers suffered a second straight loss to start their season, a dramatic 8-5 defeat at the hands of the Maple Leafs on Saturday night at Air Canada Centre. There was such dramatic defensive lapses that […]
Read MoreThe Islanders’ big offseason acquisition made himself right at home Saturday night in his first regular-season game at Barclays Center. Jordan Eberle, who came over from Edmonton in a trade for Ryan Strome, fit right in on the top line and made a dynamic duo with John Tavares in the Islanders’ 6-3 win over the […]
Read MoreTORONTO — The Rangers couldn’t even get through the first weekend of the season without having their best-laid plans spoiled. It would have been too easy for backup goalie Ondrej Pavelec just to waltz into his first regular-season action as a Ranger with his first scheduled start Sunday night at the Garden against the Canadiens. […]
Read MoreThis was a glimpse back to previous years of normalcy, with Henrik Lundqvist under the Broadway Hat, smiling and talking about the good defensive play of those in front of him. But oh, how close this was to turning the other way, to snowballing on top of the first two losses to start the regular […]
Read MoreIt had been a long, long, long time since the Rangers last opened a season with three consecutive defeats in regulation time. That was 1998-99, when Wayne Gretzky started what became the final year of his career — of which No. 99 had no inkling at the time — and Manny Malhotra, rather than Filip […]
Read MoreIt hardly would be a shock if Filip Chytil has played his final game as a Ranger for a while. After getting into the first two games of the season, the 18-year-old forward prospect was a healthy scratch for the Rangers’ 2-0 win over the Canadiens on Sunday night at the Garden. Chytil had played […]
Read MoreAlain Vigneault needed convincing to open the season with the Ryan McDonagh-Kevin Shattenkirk first pair on defense that seemed a natural to just about everyone other than the Blueshirts head coach. Shattenkirk was too much of an offensive guy who merited offensive-zone starts and Vigneault relied too much on McDonagh for defensive-zone starts to feel […]
Read MoreIt appears as if the 7-11 at the Garden is a thing of the past. And so too, Filip Chytil. Because the Rangers’ waiver claim of Adam Cracknell from Dallas indicates that he will go into the lineup on the fourth line against the Blues at the Garden on Tuesday after coach Alain Vigneault went […]
Read MoreThomas Greiss returned between the pipes Monday, his first shot at redemption since getting pulled after giving up five goals in an opening night loss to the Blue Jackets on Friday. Coach Doug Weight said he thought the goalie had “earned a lot more than that 30 minutes from us as a team and from […]
Read MoreRegarding the Rangers, whose logo could well be a question mark heading into Tuesday’s Game 4 of the season, at the Garden against the Blues: 1. It is a long way to the Feb. 26 trade deadline, 60 games through which the Blueshirts must navigate from here to there. But the inability of longshot 18-year-old […]
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