Concern Regarding the Rangers and Lightning Off to Slow Starts?

Concern Regarding the Rangers and Lightning Off to Slow Starts?

Welcome back. All right, so we are one week to the day away from my first panic index of the 2025 2026 season. And that being said, I wanted to highlight a couple of teams today that maybe haven’t got off to the start they want to. There’s no reason to panic now. That’s why I’m not doing a panic index week one. That’d be crazy. You got to wait for week two to do a panic index. But the Rangers and the Tampa Bay Lightning not off to the kind of starts that I think they envisioned that they would be. And what’s interesting with both of these teams is that they both had their struggles at home. They’ve been good on the road, but they both had their struggles at home. And it’s just a matter of finding a way around it. So, we’re going to talk about the Rangers. We’re going to talk about the Tampa Bay Lightning. Contrast. Uh, very different stories between these two teams, but they both find themselves below NHL 500. The New York Rangers are 2 and3 to start the year. The Tampa Bay Lightning 1 2 and one. The Rangers 0 and3 at home. They’re 2 and away. two and 0 away from home. Uh 0 and2 at home for the Tampa Bay Lightning. 10-1 away from home. The New York Rangers under coach Mike Sullivan is his first year in New York. So maybe there’s a bit of a learning curve going on there. And for Tampa, of course, John Cooper’s been the coach in Tampa for a very long time. He is the longest tenur coach currently in the National Hockey League. And there’s no reason to think that either of these coaches have any concern about their seat getting warm anytime soon. Now, looking at in general what’s worked okay for the Rangers here, they won at Buffalo and they won at Pittsburgh, which is good. Those are two teams they should beat if they’re going to get back into the playoffs. Both Buffalo and Pittsburgh are expected to be teams that are probably on the outside looking in once we reach the playoffs. Uh then you look at Tampa and looking at the four games that they’ve played. I want to look at all four cuz I’m going to look at the Rangers a little bit differently here. Uh, so the Tampa Bay Lightning lost at home against Ottawa and then they lost at home against New Jersey. Both of them are probably going to be playoff teams this year, right? Then they won at Boston. Boston’s a team that may very well be on the outside looking in. And then last night they had an overtime loss at Washington, a game that just got away from them. So for Tampa, it does feel like maybe they’ve had a tougher schedule than the Rangers, but both of these teams find themselves below that magical NHL 500 mark. So, looking at the leading scorers for the Rangers, Adam Fox has had a good start. Three goals, one assist, four points in five games. Uh JT Miller a goal and two assists for three points in five games. And Sam Carrick with three assists in five games for the Rangers. Lafrenier um two points so far, one goal, one assist in five games. Uh Lafrenier is a player we’ve been waiting to take that next step. And really in all honesty, I do wonder if he’s not able to take that next step this year. How much longer will he be a Ranger? What will the plans be going forward? Uh Paneran, of course, is in the final year of his contract. He just has two assists in five games thus far. Edstrom with two assists. Laba the rookie with two assists as well. So there’s there’s got to be some concern about the fact that they’re not getting enough goals from enough players and uh they’re getting great goalending at the same time. Sherkin’s two and two, but he’s got a 972 save percentage. And according to Moneypuck, he has saved 7.4 goals above expected already, meaning that all opportunities being equal and all that, there are 7.4 goals he has saved that an average goalender may not. Um, Jonathan Quick’s 0 and1, but a 952 save percentage, and in that game, he saved 1.2 goals above expected. So, the stats tell you that the goalending’s been excellent for the Rangers. The finishing has not. Now, the advanced stats also tell you that in terms of slot chances and generating opportunities and offensive zone time, the Rangers have actually been stronger at home than they’ve been on the road. The tricky part is that as teams struggle with losing, it is hard not to get into bad habits trying to force your way out of those those losses. So hopefully if the if you’re a Rangers fan, you’re thinking they’re they’re going to be able to figure this out. They’re going to stick with it. That what they’re doing will eventually work. Think think along the lines of with St. Louis last year when Montgomery took took over his systems. It took a while for them to start to work. The analytics showed they were working before the results showed up for the St. Louis Blues. Now going over to the Tampa Bay side of things, Braden Point, two goals, three assists for five points in four games. Very good start. Gensel with a goal and four assists for five points in four games. Cucharov quiet. Uh two goals, one assist, three points in four games. Cucharov normally by now would have like 20 assists. Uh Celli two goals and an assist as well. Uh Darren Radish with a goal and two assists. Borkstrand also a goal and two assists. Hedman with three assists. Gonalves and Croer also have three assists. So they’re getting the points. However, for them, the goalending has not been at that same level. So Johansson’s 1-0 with a 909 save percentage. Goal saved above expected negative.1. So right around even. Uh Baselvki 02 and1 with an 870 safe percentage. His goal saved above expected a negative 1.8. Negative is bad. Uh positive is good. So Vaselvki, the numbers haven’t been what we would expect normally from Vaselvki. The good news being he’s a veteran goalender who should be able to figure this out and turn it around. But it it is something to keep in mind uh with Tampa. They’re getting the goals, they’re not necessarily getting the saves at all times, right? So, looking at the numbers too with the Rangers and and backing up my point that they’ve been playing well. So, in the first home game against the Penguins, the deserved winnow meter, I’m using this from Money Puck. I know it’s a flawed system, but I thought it’d be fun to look at it. Uh the deserved winnow meter for that game against the Penguins, they lost at home, 44.6%. So, they didn’t deserve to win that game according to that. Uh, against the Capitals, 68.1% deserved a win meter. And last night against the Oilers, 86.5%. I don’t know that I have ever seen 86.5% on the deserved winner meter for a team that loses the game. In fact, 86.5% is ridiculous. So, the Rangers played very, very well. They got goalied. And if the Rangers played that game nine times out of 10, they win it. And last night was just that 10th opportunity where they don’t right now their power play maybe a concern at 14.3%. I could mention Krider gone to Anaheim and he’s helping their power play but uh the Crider divorce was going to happen so had to happen. Uh the penalty kill for the Rangers has been perfect 100%. So there are some positives here for the Rangers. The goalending has been very good. The defense has been good. The penalty kill has been excellent. It’s just a matter of continuing what they’ve been doing because the numbers tell you eventually they will break through. They just have to keep it up. Um there have been times in the past where a team’s struggling but they’re playing well and then suddenly they’re struggling and they’re not playing well. So it’s it’s a matter of you know staying on this and so we’ll see how things go for the Rangers from here. Coming over to Tampa Bay’s side, they’re scoring 3.25 goals per game. They’re allowing four goals against per game. So, that’s way too high. They need to bring the goals against down. Uh, some sloppy hockey to start the season, especially the early games against Ottawa and New Jersey. It feels like last night against Washington, it wasn’t in that same range in terms of sloppiness. Um, their power play at 30% is excellent and their penalty kill at 87.5%. Special teams are doing quite well for Tampa as well, but they’ve been outshot badly and I did a double take when I saw this. Their 31.5 shots uh against per game is 26th in the NHL. They’re only getting 21 shots per game. 21 even. That’s 30th in the NHL. That’s got to turn around. Uh the fact that that Tampa would only have 21 shots per game. It’s way too low. So, uh I do think those numbers will turn around. So, when does that turnaround take place? So, we go over to the Rangers and their schedule tomorrow. They’re in Toronto. The Leafs are very up and down, very unpredictable. Uh, but it’s a road game and the Rangers are very good on the road. Uh, then on Saturday, the Rangers find themselves in Montreal. So, a couple of original six matchups on the on the horizon for them. And then on Monday, they come home and they play against Minnesota. So, the interesting thing with Minnesota is their power play running at around 50% at the time I’m recording this. And the Rangers with that 100% penalty kill, that could be a huge part of the story in that game against Minnesota. Uh then on Thursday the 23rd, uh they’re at home against San Jose. So what’s important here is a couple of days off. Uh practice days, days to get things figured out, right? Then on Sunday the 26th, they’re at Calgary. Tuesday the 28th, they’re at Vancouver. And Thursday the 30th of October, they are at no at Edmonton. In November, they have 15 games during that season. So or during that month in this season. Uh, and I I wanted to point that out because we know it’s a condensed schedule, there are teams that play 16 17 games in certain months, at the very least, the Rangers, while they’re busy this month and next month, they’re not necessarily as busy as some others. Um, so yeah, the the Rangers, I think, do turn this around, but the next few games could be very telling with Toronto, Montreal, and Minnesota, none of those being easy games. Um, a west coast swing could honestly be really good for the New York Rangers, especially combined with the fact they’ve been better on the road for getting results than at home. Tampa, on the other hand, Friday they’re at Detroit, so they have a couple of days off before their next game. Uh, and then Saturday they’re at Columbus, so it’s back to backs there. Uh, then it’s Thursday before they play again and it’s at home. So, they’ve got a nice break between the game on Saturday and then a game the following Thursday, which is against Chicago. So, this is where the schedule appears to favor Tampa, right? Uh Detroit and Columbus, those could be winnable games for for Tampa. Should be if they’re playing at 100%. Uh then they come home, they play against Chicago on Saturday the 25th, they’re at home against Anaheim uh on the 26th. So, this is another backto-back. They’re at home against Vegas. So, they got to win that game against Anaheim because the next day they’re against Vegas, which is a very tough uh team to play at the best of times. Uh then Tuesday the 28th, they’re in Nashville. and then Thursday the 30th at home against Dallas. They also play 14 games in the month of November. So Tampa’s schedule upcoming, they’ve got a couple of games against, you know, Vegas and Dallas for instance, but the rest of the schedule is not uh that taxing comparatively speaking with others in the league. I do think both of these teams figure it out. Uh one thing to keep in mind for the Rangers, there has been turnaround. They do have a new coach. They do have some new players this season as opposed to last season’s team that finished the the year out and so it might take a little bit of time to get this all straightened out and put together. Um the Rangers are expected to be a playoff team, but they did miss the playoffs last year, so there is still that question mark out there. Tampa’s expected to be a playoff team. They’ve been in the playoffs for a nice long time now. So I don’t think there’s any danger that they don’t turn it around. The thing is those slow starts once you get past week two and week three, all of a sudden you’ve got a team that’s in a slump out of the gate and then you’re looking at a situation where they’re trying to play catchup with everybody else in the division/conference and it can get really difficult really fast. So both the Rangers and Tampa will be looking to figure this out as quickly as possible. I think Tampa is the more likely to turn it around quicker than the Rangers, but the advanced stats tell you and the deserved winnow meter tell you the Rangers are playing okay. They’re just not getting the results at this point in time. So, let me know your thoughts. Which of these two teams do you think there should be concern about or should there be none? It is always fun to look at this early in the season because sometimes things don’t turn around. Last year at this point, I was talking about Nashville and Edmonton being off to slow starts. Nashville did not recover from that slow start. Edmonton obviously did. So, the odds are both of these teams could turn it around, but there is a chance that one of them doesn’t necessarily or it could take a while for one of them to turn around and then you’re really behind the eightball as to whether or not you’re going to be able to make that run towards a playoff spot when uh things are as tough as they can be in the East. So, let me know your thoughts. I just thought this was a fun discussion for today. Hit like and subscribe in the event that you may not have done so already. Uh thank you guys so much for all your support as always. I will talk to you again soon.

I wanted to talk about a couple of teams struggling a bit to start the season and decided to focus on two out of the East.

Join this channel to get access to perks:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_AFyA9FqrZ57bb9QRH77wg/join

Join us on our discord to chat hockey, talk with others during the game, share pet pictures, and more.
https://discord.gg/thehockeyguy

Order jerseys from Ben H Sports while saving 10% off the listed eBay prices by sending him an email regarding jerseys you spot in his listings. ben.hoogenband@yahoo.ca Just tell him Shannon sent you.

Support The Hockey Guy via Patreon https://www.patreon.com/thehockeyguy

https://www.facebook.com/youtubehockeyguy/
Instagram: thgshannon and thg_cats
Spoutible: https://spoutible.com/TheHockeyGuy

TheHockeyGuy.yt@gmail.com

Contact me via snail mail at:
The Hockey Guy
PO Box 13063 RPO Highstreet
Abbotsford, BC
V2S 0C4
CANADA

In the USA: some times it takes us a few weeks to get items up to us
Shannon Skanes
1125 Fir Avenue
Suite 119
Blaine, WA 98230

Shop THG Store:
www.thgyt.ca