Rangers vs. Bruins: What Year is It?
Shesterkin kept it scoreless into the final four minutes before three goals in 75 seconds sank the Rangers. One game isn't a verdict, but it has to get better.
- Welp, we're back, aren't we?
- If you're the glass-half-full type out there, the New York Rangers were shut out 3-0 at home in the season opener last year. So, at least this was on the road?
- And now if you want to focus in on that half of the glass that's empty, they have their home opener on Thursday against the Tampa Bay Lightning. Please, please, please score a goal.
Find out on Thursday... maybe! https://t.co/Yz5wiqwHtY
— Adam Herman (@AdamZHerman) September 30, 2026
- No doubt there are people out there ready to declare that there's nothing different about this team and this season is going to look a lot like last season. If that's you, there's a chance you're right about that. But I'm going to need more than a single data point of a game before I'm ready to make that call.
- It's also worth keeping the shortened preseason in mind. Camp was shorter—and they missed a practice after the nor'easter knocked out power to their practice facility—and there were two fewer preseason games, because the regular-season schedule has been extended to 84 games. As a result, this really was the first time that this crew—which includes seven new players—was all together on the ice for a game.
- I do think that matters, and while no doubt teams will adjust over time to the shortened ramp-up to the regular season, this being the first year of the compressed schedule, teams are still sorting it out. I think it's going to be increasingly hard for players to do what Noah Laba did last preseason and Victor Mancini did the year before that—play so well in camp and the preseason games that they force their way onto the roster.
