The New York Rangers are celebrating their 100th season in team history but never began this poorly on home ice until now.
New York aims to finally get its first home win in its eighth attempt Monday night against the Nashville Predators.
The Rangers are 0-6-1 at home this season, and it marks the 20th instance in NHL history a team did not win their first seven home games of a season. The NHL record for longest home winless skid to open a season is an 11-game streak by the 1983-84 Pittsburgh Penguins — in the season before they drafted Mario Lemieux with the top overall pick.
When they lost 5-0 to the rival New York Islanders on Saturday, the Rangers broke the team record set by the 1943-44 squad and was matched in 1950-51.
The Rangers are getting outscored 23-6 during their skid, and five of those goals were in a 6-5 overtime loss to the San Jose Sharks on Oct. 23.
New York was shut out for the fifth time at home when it allowed three goals on 2-on-1s to the Islanders on Saturday night. New York finished with 33 shots on goal, marking just the third time it had at least 30 shots in a home game this season.
“I wish I could put my finger on the struggles that we’ve had at home to this point, but what I do know is we’ve got to work through it together and we’ll certainly do that,” said Rangers coach Mike Sullivan, whose team is 7-1-1 on the road.
Artemi Panarin and Mika Zibanejad combined for 11 shots on goal and 19 shot attempts. Panarin was denied on a point-blank chance in the opening minute, and Zibanejad rang a shot off the crossbar shortly before the Rangers allowed the first goal.
“We got to find a way to score,” Zibanejad said. “I don’t care how it looks, what it looks like, what happens on Monday. We’ve just got to get a win.”
Nashville is on its second four-game winless streak this season and 1-5-2 in its past eight contests. Four of those losses are by one goal, including Saturday when the Predators took a 5-4 home loss to the Dallas Stars by allowing three goals in the third period, including two in 47 seconds.
Filip Forsberg scored in the second period and Steven Stamkos scored a power-play goal in the third before the Predators blew their lead and took their third loss when leading through two periods.
Nashville allowed five goals for the fifth time this season and its 21 shots on goal were its third-fewest all season. The Predators also committed 20 giveaways.
“It’s just the games that we play well defensively, we can’t seem to get that extra goal to put us over the hump,” Stamkos said. “(Saturday) we score four and give up five, so it’s about trying to balance that out. It’s obviously frustrating when you’re in as many games as we are and you’re losing those by slim margins of errors.”
