Ten Game Temp Check: Rangers' 7–3 Stretch an Encouraging Sign With a Tough Road Lying Ahead
Twenty games into the season the wins are starting to come but the Rangers still find themselves on the outside looking in as far as playoff positions go.
Welcome back to part two of this season’s Ten Game Temp Check series. Another stretch of ten games has come and gone with the New York Rangers now holding a record of 10-8-2 at the 20 game mark. This put them at that time in fifth in the Metropolitan Division, ninth in the Eastern Conference and 17th in the overall league standings. Here’s a side-by-side for the expectations set in part one and the actual results across the last ten games.
@ Vancouver—W 2-0 Win @ Vancouver
@ Edmonton—W 4-3 OT Win @ Edmonton
@ Seattle—W 3-2 OT Win @ Seattle
vs. Carolina—L 3-0 Loss V. Carolina
@ Detroit—W 4-1 Win @ Detroit
vs. Islanders—L 5-0 Loss V. NY Islanders
vs. Nashville—W 6-3 Win V. Nashville
@ Tampa—L 7-3 Win @ Tampa
@ Columbus—W 2-1 SO Win @ Columbus
vs. Detroit—W 2-1 Loss V. Detroit
Things went almost exactly as planned, at least in terms of the expectations set in part one. The main point I made after the first 10 games of the season was that the Rangers needed to come out of the West Coast road trip with some kind of win streak, and while two of them required overtime, they managed to get it done. Now, a lot of people thought that setting the expectation at 7-3 for these ten games was a bit unrealistic. And, I’ll be honest, at the time it did feel a bit optimistic. With that in mind, the fact that the Rangers were able to find a way to win hockey games and come out this 10 game stretch with seven wins is at the very least a step in the right direction.
What Went Well
With a few exceptions, the Rangers were playing good hockey and got the wins to back that up. One of the main concerns through the teams first 10 games was the fact that they weren’t getting the contributions they needed from their top guys. That has since sorted itself out as Mika Zibanejad, Artemi Panarin, Alexis Lafrenière, and Will Cuylle have all turned their game up a notch and rank among the team's top five point producers 20 games into the season.
Additionally, one of the things that went wrong for the Rangers at the start of the season was the injuries. J.T. Miller's preseason injury was lingering, Vincent Trocheck was 0n LTIR, and Carson Soucy and Matt Rempe both went down. While the Rangers are still dealing with some of those injuries (and have new concerns in Will Borgen), Trocheck returning was a huge positive to come in this 10 game stretch, as he has been making an impact ever since he returned in the game against Nashville.
