The NHL season kicked off last week, news I’m sure to some of the more devout readers of this space who willingly ignore anything that doesn’t involve baseball, basketball or a city otherwise consumed with fighting ICE, just ahead of a six-month span where the battle with the lower-case version of that word typically begins.
Despite an extremely small sample size, to date not a single home victory has occurred in the tri-state area despite having three teams populating it. The Devils have a legitimate excuse; they have yet to play a game in Newark’s Prudential Center (that drought ends tonight with a visit from the defending Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers). The Islanders are performing to expectations–they’re the only one of the league’s 30 teams without a single point. But at least they’ve lit the lamp at UBS Arena a couple of times.
As for the area’s third team–the one wearing those funky bi-color throwback jerseys in honor of their centennial season–well, they’re in the midst of an entirely different kind of suck. And as CLUTCH POINTS’ Christopher Hennessy observed Tuesday night, it’s historic:
The New York Rangers have high expectations for the 2025-26 season under new head coach Mike Sullivan. They missed the playoffs last season, a precipitous fall from their Presidents’ Trophy win the year before. But four games into the new era, things are not going well on Broadway. After two periods against the Oilers on Tuesday, the Rangers had made history with their scoreless streak at Madison Square Garden.
“History at Madison Square Garden. Rangers have surpassed the 2001-02 Panthers (155:17) for the longest season-opening streak without a goal on home ice among teams that still exist,” The Athletic’s Peter Baugh reported, citing NHL Stats. “The now-defunct Pittsburgh Pirates are the only team with a longer streak (187:19 in 1928).”
And as Adam Gretz of YARDBARKER reinforced yesterday, it’s not necessarily due to lack of effort:
What has to make this goal drought so frustrating for the Rangers is they are not actually playing poorly in these games. At least not the past two games. The Rangers largely carried the play against both the Capitals and Oilers, significantly out-shooting and out-chancing them.
During Tuesday’s game, for example, the Rangers generated 11 high-danger scoring chances during 5-on-5 play to only three for the Oilers. That sort of territorial and scoring chance edge is usually enough to generate a win. It was a similar story over the weekend against the Capitals.
And to be even fairer, the Rangers are currently unbeaten in their first two road efforts of 2025-26, and they were convincing enough wins that they actually have a +3 goals differential to date, with a trip to Ontario for matches against the Maple Leafs and Senators between now and Saturday. Fortunately for those hockey-mad environs, they’re otherwise preoccupied with playoff baseball right now, something that the two teams that share New York City proper with the Rangers denied them with their own fall failures. So the chance for a rebound in relative obscurity lies ahead before they return home.
And then, per Hennessy, the countdown to avoid all-time ignominy ramps up in earnest:
At 7:20 of the first period against the Minnesota Wild on Monday, October 20, they would set the record. The Pittsburgh Pirates’ streak was broken by Hib Milks, according to Baugh. Who do you think will be the Rangers’ Hib Milks in 2025?
It’s an unfortunate question that will hang over the heads of Madison Square Garden faithful that are now more than halfway to the length of the Stanley Cup drought their parents and grandparents endured–it’s 31 years and counting since the “Nineteen-Forty!” taunt that endured 54 years was ended with the thrilling run of 1994. And any comparison to any franchise named the Pittsburgh Pirates is not a good look.
In time, this will be forgotten. In fact, with a few breaks the Rangers could take the ice Monday night in first place in the Metropolitan Division. It’s that early in a very long season.
But in the words of the suffering faithful who still occupy what were once the 400s, just light the friggin’ lamp already.
Courage…