The last time the Rangers came home after a road trip, they were riding a three-game win streak, feeling good about themselves, and hoping that their game had turned the corner, and they would be in position to finally end their futility so far this season at home.
Of course, that didn’t happen.
Saturday night the Blueshirts were back home again at the Garden, facing off against their archrivals, the Islanders. Once again they were coming off a road win, and once again they were hoping they could take all the good things they’d done in their previous game – a 4-1 victory over the Red Wings in Detroit Friday – and apply those to propel them to their first home win of the season.
The thing is, as they see it, there hasn’t been anything they’ve been doing on the road that they haven’t been doing at home. In their minds, they’ve played the same, home and away, so there wasn’t something they needed to change to fix their home woes.
“I have no idea,’’ said Artemi Panarin after he’d scored a goal and had two assists Friday night, when asked why the team was winless (0-5-1) at home, while going 7-1-1 on the road. “Maybe – I don’t know… Like with last game (a 3-0 loss to Carolina on Tuesday), we looked great the first two periods. Like I said before… there’s only one way to turn off this thing: Keep doing what we’re doing, keep believing in each other, stay behind each other, right? That’s the only thing we can do.’’
Of course, the big problem at home has been that they haven’t been able to score goals. In their first six home games, they were shut out four times and had scored a total of six goals – five coming in a 6-5 OT loss to San Jose on Oct. 23. In many of those games, they felt they’d outplayed their opponent, and the analytics – as far as shots on goal, shot attempts, scoring chances and high-danger scoring chances – backed up that belief.
“For most of the games that we played here, with the exception of a few, I think we’ve been the better team,’’ defenseman Adam Fox said after the loss to Carolina, “especially the ones we haven’t scored.
“I think it’s just a long season. I think it could be just coincidence early that we’re not scoring. But obviously we want to protect home ice a little better and win some games here.’’
Entering Saturday, the Rangers had scored 35 goals in 15 games and allowed 35 goals. Their 2.33 goals-against per game was the lowest in the league; their 2.33 goals-scored per game was second-lowest.
The hope going into Saturday was that the way they’d won Friday night – where they got a goal from Panarin (who’d shaved his head to try and change his luck), one from the luckless power play, and one from Alexis Lafreniere, who’d previously scored just one goal on 32 shots – might finally be the thing that opens the floodgates for them in terms of producing goals.
Panarin wasn’t quite ready to say that.
“Probably my (shaved) head didn’t work for everyone, right?’’ he joked, then got serious. “No, we’ve got to work every night, and then every shift to be successful. In my experience, this is the only way – work.’’
But coach Mike Sullivan, who has changed up his forward lines several times to try and find combinations that work, and who still didn’t have center Vincent Trocheck (upper-body injury, long-term IR) available for Saturday’s game, said getting goals from Panarin, Lafreniere and the power play could indeed signal a change for the better for his team.
“Sure,’’ Sullivan said before Saturday’s game. “I think anytime the guys score that we rely on to score, it certainly helps their confidence. It helps their mindset going into the next game.’’
Notes & quotes: Before the game, the Rangers returned D Connor Mackey to AHL Hartford. Sullivan said D Urho Vaakanainen, who missed the last two games with a lower-body injury, was available to play, though he wouldn’t say if there would be changes from Friday’s lineup… Igor Shesterkin started in goal after Jonathan Quick played Friday in Detroit.
Colin Stephenson covers the Rangers for Newsday. He has spent more than two decades covering the NHL and just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.