Ten Game Temp Check: Garand Rises to Occasion As Rangers Battle Early Adversity

It's been a roller coaster of a start to the New York Rangers season. From a disappointing opening night to a historic home opener, a four-game win streak, losing their star goaltender for the season, and everything else in between, the Rangers have certainly turned over a new leaf this year.

The youngest team in the league, the Rangers are 6-3-1 to start the season. Those numbers have them second in the Metropolitan Division, third in the Eastern Conference, and sixth in the league overall. Here's how those 10 games played out:

• 3-0 Loss @ Boston Bruins
• 5-1 Win V. Tampa Bay Lightning
• 2-0 Win @ Detroit Red Wings
• 4-2 Win V. Utah Mammoth
• 6-2 Win V. New York Islanders
• 3-1 Loss @ Washington Capitals
• 6-2 Win V. Vancouver Canucks
• 4-1 Win V. Tampa Bay Lightning
• 7-1 Loss @ New Jersey Devils
• 1-0 OT Loss @ Columbus Blue Jackets

The start of the season is always hit or miss, but paying mind to the fact that the Rangers are just one of five teams in the league to hit the 10-game mark, had a back-to-back with travel, and faced the type of adversity they did, having a 6-3-1 record to show for it is quite marvelous.

What Went Well

For starters, the team's ability to bounce back. Opening night on the road went about as disastrously as you could anticipate given how the last two seasons went. They were outperformed (slightly) and shut out by a team they should be able to compete with, giving up three quick goals to lose the game in the final six minutes. They answered that with a four-game win streak. They also found a way to bounce back after the stinker of a game they played in New Jersey. While they went on to lose the game in overtime, they seemingly got back on track from a systems standpoint and got an excellent outing from Dylan Garand, who was pulled the night prior.

Beyond that, the Rangers are truly buying into head coach Mike Sullivan's systems and bringing this new ideology of Rangers Hockey to life. President and general manager Chris Drury preached how this team needed to get younger, faster, and tougher, and wouldn't you know it, they did exactly that. This team's ability to play a north-south style of hockey where they come in hard on the forecheck, are smart defensively, and move the puck better and better on a nightly basis—it's everything you wanted to see from this group in the early stages of the new season.

Lastly, just about everyone on this team is pulling their weight. When you move on from a star player who is typically good for 90-point seasons at minimum, guys need to step up to make up those points. For the most part, the guys who need to be doing that are, and the team has proved capable of getting the important secondary scoring it lacked in years prior.