Vintage Ice Hockey is the only company that sells premium-quality jerseys, apparel and team merchandise for defunct minor league hockey franchises. It’s a family-run, hockey fan-driven company that’s committed to celebrating and preserving the legacies of defunct minor league hockey franchises. Check out their collection spanning over 100 years of minor league hockey and use code KTTC for 15% off your order!

The daunting three games in four days schedule sandwiched around Thanksgiving for the Rangers resulted in three wins. The Rangers won in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia and then knocked off Boston in New York.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Rangers.

1. After blowing a two-goal lead, allowing six unanswered goals and losing to Dallas 6-3 on Monday night, the Rangers bounced back with a 1-0 win in Pittsburgh. It was the Preseason Problems Game as Alexis Lafreniere’s goal 5:10 into the game stood up with Jonathan Quick making 32 saves for his second shutout in five starts as a Ranger. Those two were the ire of many Rangers fans for their late-September and early-October play, but their performance in actual, meaningful games that count have served as a reminder that the preseason is meaningless.

Quick made five power-play saves and one shorthanded save in the game, but no save was bigger than him getting a piece of Sidney Crosby’s wrister as the Penguins legend was left alone in the slot in the final minute of play. Evgeni Malkin found Crosby by himself and as a Rangers fan (and Rangers +100 money line bettor), my heart momentarily sank.

2. The Rangers had a rather quick turnaround from Wednesday night’s win to Friday’s early-afternoon game in Philadelphia. Earlier in the week, it was shocking to see the Flyers sitting in second place in the Met. Sure, they had played more games than teams right behind them, but still, it’s the Flyers, and they suck. Seeing them in second place through six weeks whether teams had games in hand on them or not is not something anyone should have expected at this point. It only took a day’s worth of the Rangers beating up on them and the rest of the division getting back into action for the Flyers to tumble to down the standings.

This one was over rather quickly. Mika Zibanejad scored just 45 seconds into the game, for his third of the season, first in November and first in 25 days.

One minute and eight seconds later, the Rangers scored again. Travis Sanheim threw the puck in front of his own net and it was as if he were wearing a Blueshirt as it was placed perfectly on Chris Kreider’s tape. Kreider banged it home to give the Rangers a 2-0 lead. MSG quickly panned to the Flyers’ bench where John Tortorella looked like he wanted to be anywhere else in the world other than behind his team’s bench.

Just under eight minutes into the second, Zibanejad scored again. Here is what I wrote about Zibanejad on Wednesday:

One of these games, Zibanejad will go off, net a hat trick and get right back to being his usual self. With the season 20 percent over, it would be nice if that happened in the near future, and no better time than this week where the Rangers will play three games in four days and five games in eight days. This is the most opportune time for Zibanejad to start finding the back of the net.

He came one shy of a hat trick, but the two-goal game was a welcome sight. In 27:41 of play against the Flyers, Zibanejad doubled his season goal total, and with a three-goal lead against this Flyers team, the remainder of the game was a formality in an eventual 3-1 win.

A day later, the Rangers were back home for the first time in nearly two weeks to host the Bruins in a battle of the Eastern Conference’s best. It was a game that drew my attention when the schedule was released in the summer, and a game that saw its attention grow exponentially over the first fifth of the season.

3. With Igor Shesterkin having played in Philadelphia, Quick was given the start in the second game of the back-to-back, and it was another quick start for the Rangers’ offense as well.

Nick Bonino scored his first goal as a Ranger when he gathered the puck near the top of the circles, spun around and wristed it past Linus Ullmark to give the Rangers a 1-0 at 5:58 of the first. Five minutes later, the Rangers extended their lead to 2-0 with Kreider picking up a rebound on the power play. The Bruins responded to the early deficit by calling timeout. The Bruins looked like nothing like advertised through the first 12-plus minutes of the game as they didn’t record their first shot until there was just 7:21 left in the period. It’s quite possible (and extremely likely) they took advantage of landing in New York in the early evening on Friday and having a night out in the city. But whatever Jim Montgomery said to them during that timeout changed their play and demeanor. The Bruins tied the game with goals 22 seconds apart. Then it was Peter Laviolette’s turn to call a timeout.

“There was a rollercoaster of emotions in the way that the game was played, and that was one of them,” Laviolette said. “To me, just to stop the game to reset, it’s now back to even, back to work.”

I figured the Rangers may collapse the way they have so many times in recent seasons with two-goal leads in game. They had just blown a two-goal lead and lost four days earlier in Dallas and it wasn’t that long ago they blew a three-goal lead and lost in Minnesota. When Erik Gustafsson went off for hooking with 1:34 to go in the first, a two-goal lead becoming a one-goal deficit seemed inevitable.

But 15 seconds after Gustafsson went off, the Bruins turned the puck over at the top of the offensive zone, Kreider fled the zone and Jacob Trouba hit Kreider in stride for a breakaway. Kreider, the last person you ever want on a breakaway, finally converted one for a shorthanded goal and the Rangers had the lead back.

“It was a great read by Jacob, ” Kreider said. “Nice pass right on the tape.”

4. The lead didn’t last long. The Bruins began the second period on the same power play and when the Rangers failed to clear the puck near the blue line, the Bruins turned it into a 3-on-1 below the top of the circles. David Pastrnak hesitated, got Quick to open his five-hole and jammed it past him to tie the game.

The game remained tied for more than 16 minutes of play, until a delayed Bruins penalty turned into a 6-on-5 for the Rangers, which turned into Jimmy Vesey’s fourth goal of the season. About three minutes later Mika Zibanejad left a drop pas for K’Andre, who walked into it with all 6-foot-5 of his body and blasted a ridiculous slap shot past Ullmark. 5-3 Rangers.

“That was back and forth, a lot of emotions probably from both teams,” Laviolette said. “I thought the guys showed a lot of resiliency.”

5. It was the best and worst game of the season. Best in terms of putting up a 7-spot on the league’s second-best defense (the Rangers entered the game first in the league in terms of goals against average) and beating the Rangers’ direct competition for the East’s 1-seed by three goals. It was the worst because of the blown two-goal, two blown leads and uneasiness of the Rangers’ own defense from the midway point of the first period through the second period.

This time the Rangers wouldn’t blow the lead though. 5-3 became 6-3 on Tyler Pitlick’s first as a Ranger. A minute later, the Bruins cut it to 6-4, but two minutes after that, Artemi Panarin slammed the door, making it 7-4, which is how it would stay. (After three straight pointless games, Panarin had a goal and two assists against the Bruins.)

6. “Doing that against a Top 2, Top 3 team in the league is always nice,” Miller said. “It shows we have a pretty good team.”

Not just a “good team” but the best team in the Eastern Conference. The Rangers lead the Met by nine points. They have lost in regulation once (Dallas) in more than five weeks. They have only twice (Dallas and Minnesota) in six weeks (and they held a multi-goal lead in both games). The Rangers started the season 2-2 and are 13-1-1 since.

7. “Our guys are going into a game expecting to win, expecting to play a certain way,” Laviolette said. “And if we do that, we can see the results. Today, I think was just a little but more challenging because of the schedule that we’ve been in.”

The schedule is something I wrote about on Wednesday:

The Rangers’ schedule has been rather odd to this point. After a pair of road games and a pair of home games to begin the season, they went on a 10-day, three-time zone road trip in which they went west (Seattle), east (Calgary), north (Edmonton), west again (Vancouver) and east again Winnipeg), They returned home for one game and then went back on the road and out of the time zone for one game in Minnesota. (Why not just play in Minnesota after Winnipeg?) Then they played three home games before having six days off. Now they are on a road trip that covers New Jersey (OK, not really a road trip), Dallas, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia.

When you’re winning, like the Rangers have been, it makes a frustrating and outrageous schedule less of an annoyance.

8. “I still don’t think we’ve played our best hockey yet,” Miller said, “which kind of scary and fun to say at the same time.”

I think Miller is somewhat right. The Rangers have played their best hockey, it just happened to come on opening night in Buffalo. That performance is likely to never be duplicated as it was the best and most complete effort from the Rangers in a decade. It’s scary that they are capable of that level play, and it’s even more scary that they haven’t come close to matching it and have a 15-3-1 record.

10. “We worked hard,” Laviolette said. “We worked smart to secure the two points.”

That’s all the Rangers seem to do: secure two points. Now the crazy schedule to date loosens up a bit as the Rangers remain home for two more games (Buffalo and Detroit), and then the schedule softens with back-to-back games next weekend at Nashville and home against San Jose. A lot of favorable opportunities over the next week to secure two points.

Vintage Ice Hockey is the only company that sells premium-quality jerseys, apparel and team merchandise for defunct minor league hockey franchises. It’s a family-run, hockey fan-driven company that’s committed to celebrating and preserving the legacies of defunct minor league hockey franchises. Check out their collection spanning over 100 years of minor league hockey and use code KTTC for 15% off your order!

Vintage Ice Hockey is the only company that sells premium-quality jerseys, apparel and team merchandise for defunct minor league hockey franchises. It’s a family-run, hockey fan-driven company that’s committed to celebrating and preserving the legacies of defunct minor league hockey franchises. Check out their collection spanning over 100 years of minor league hockey and use code KTTC for 15% off your order!

The Rangers lost in regulation for the first time in more than a month on Monday in Dallas.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Rangers.

1. Things are going so well for the Rangers that blowing a 2-0 second-period lead and allowing six straight goals (including five in the third period) in an eventual 6-3 loss isn’t upsetting. Losses are going to happen, even losses as bad as the one in Dallas on Monday.

“I thought we started the right way,” Peter Laviolette said after the loss. “It’s tough to finish that way.”

2. After the Stars tied the game at 2, their third goal was initially waved off before being overturned in their favor. When the Rangers had an obvious goal overturned a couple of weekends ago against the Blue Jackets, Stephen Valiquette said, “The Rangers never get a call … I’m not kidding.” And he wasn’t kididng.

The Rangers had two goals called back against them in Columbus in the second game of the season. They had the goal called back against them against Columbus two weekends ago. On Saturday in New Jersey, the Devils’ first goal was overturned in favor of the Devils and later in the game, a major penalty was taken off the board completely in favor of the Devils. Then in Dallas on Monday, not only was the Stars’ third goal overturned in their favor, but so was their fourth. The moment the officials need to review anything, you can guarantee it’s going against the Rangers.

3. That’s not me complaining about officiating or being a homer, it’s the truth. Valiquette wasn’t kidding, and neither am I. The Rangers are never the beneficiary of a review.

Despite the loss, the Rangers remain comfortably atop the Met with a four-point lead on the second-place Flyers, who they have two games in hand on as well. The Rangers may have blown a two-goal lead and have allowed six unanswered goals (two were empty-netters), but they are still very, very good.

4. Not all of the Rangers have been good this season, even with the team having won 75 percent of its games, and a good amount of them haven’t played to expectations. They haven’t had to because Artemi Panarin has been otherworldly with 10 goals and 16 assists in 16 games. Sadly, his point streak ended on Monday as he was unable to find the scoresheet.

Panarin’s 15-game point streak to begin the season was the longest to start a season in Rangers history and was the third longest point streak in Rangers history. It was the longest streak since Wayne Gretzky in 1996-97 and after Saturday’s 5-3 win over the Devils, Panarin became the first Ranger to have five consecutive multi-point games since Jaromir Jagr 18 years ago.

5. While Panarin is enjoying the best season of his career, Mika Zibenejad is mired in the worst of his in terms of goal scoring. Zibanejad continues to sit on two goals. He has as many goals as Kaapo Kakkko and Blake Wheeler and one fewer than Jimmy Vesey and Will Cuylle. He’s on pace for 10 goals this season, which is how many Panarin and Chris Kreider already have.

One of these games, Zibanejad will go off, net a hat trick and get right back to being his usual self. With the season 20 percent over, it would be nice if that happened in the near future, and no better time than this week where the Rangers will play three games in four days and five games in eight days. This is the most opportune time for Zibanejad to start finding the back of the net.

6. I do come across line change proposals and new combinations to get Zibanejad out of his funk, but I don’t think it’s necessary. Unless you’re going to pair him with Panarin (a move I have called for since Panarin’s Rangers debut) then there’s no need to upset the Panarin-Vincent Trocheck-Alexis Lafreniere line. Zibanejad can figure it out and will figure it out without needing to change the dynamic of a first- place team. (Again, unless you’re putting him with Panarin and Lafreniere).

7. Lafreniere continues to be noticeable every game and prove that former No. 1 overall worth. He had the game of his career to date against Columbus and even on nights when he’s not scoring or assisting on goals, he’s having an impact on the game. Too many times over his first three seasons would he have games (and even stretches) of being invisible and that’s not happening this season. Peter Laviolette’s faith in Lafreniere becoming the player the Rangers have dreamed out is paying off.

8. Kaapo Kakko just went 10 games without a point. Zibanejad has two goals. Adam Fox and Filip Chytil have missed 38 percent of the season and Chytil had no goals in the 10 games he did play. Igor Shesterkin missed two weeks and the Rangers used three goalies in their first 13 games. And yet, they are still 12-3-1. I’m sure the Rangers will give fans plenty to complain about over the remaining 66 games, but for now, even the things there are to complain about aren’t worth it just as of now. Again, they just lost for the first time in regulation and just the second time overall in more than a month.

9. The Rangers’ schedule has been rather odd to this point. After a pair of road games and a pair of home games to begin the season, they went on a 10-day, three-time zone road trip in which they went west (Seattle), east (Calgary), north (Edmonton), west again (Vancouver) and east again Winnipeg), They returned home for one game and then went back on the road and out of the time zone for one game in Minnesota. (Why not just play in Minnesota after Winnipeg?) Then they played three home games before having six days off. Now they are on a road trip that covers New Jersey (OK, not really a road trip), Dallas, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia.

10. Now the Rangers have an extremely tough week ahead with games against the Penguins, Flyers, Bruins, Sabres and Red Wings. There’s a chance they could get Fox back next week and there’s hopefully a chance Zibenejad will score a goal within the next week. The Rangers’ third-period heroics finally went the other way against them in Dallas, and if it wasn’t just one loss and if the magic that has been the first six weeks of the season is going to start to wear off, they’re going to need both the physical return of Fox and the goal-scoring return of Zibanejad to avoid undoing what they have done to this point.

Vintage Ice Hockey is the only company that sells premium-quality jerseys, apparel and team merchandise for defunct minor league hockey franchises. It’s a family-run, hockey fan-driven company that’s committed to celebrating and preserving the legacies of defunct minor league hockey franchises. Check out their collection spanning over 100 years of minor league hockey and use code KTTC for 15% off your order!

Vintage Ice Hockey is the only company that sells premium-quality jerseys, apparel and team merchandise for defunct minor league hockey franchises. It’s a family-run, hockey fan-driven company that’s committed to celebrating and preserving the legacies of defunct minor league hockey franchises. Check out their collection spanning over 100 years of minor league hockey and use code KTTC for 15% off your order!

1. If you had told me before the season began that through less than the first month the Rangers would briefly lose Ryan Lindgren to injury, put Adam Fox on long-term injured reserve and a goal-less Filip Chytil on injured reserve, Igor Shesterkin would only play in eight games to date (and get pulled in one) and get injured, his backup would get injured, the team would be on their third goalie, Mika Zibanejad would have two goals, and the Rangers would have lost games to the Blue Jackets and Predators and blown a three-goal lead to the Wild, I would have asked you how many more losses they have compiled. Instead the Rangers are 8-2-1 through 13 games, and after their 4-1 win over the Wild on Thursday, they have won eight of their last nine.

2. Five nights after blowing a three-goal lead to the Wild before losing 5-4 in a shootout, the Rangers got retribution for their collapse in Minnesota. They didn’t play a complete game, but they scored the first goal of the game, never trailed and got an amazing performance in net from Louis Domingue in his first game as a Ranger.

“When you’re older, you don’t build yourself up too high for a game like this,” Domingue said. “You just try to do your job.”

Domingue did his job and did it exceptionally well. he turned away 25 of the Wild’s 26 shots, limited to them just one goal in their dominant second period and helped ease the minds of Rangers fans nervous about the health of Shesterkin and Jonathan Quick.

3. “It’s not his first rodeo,” Peter Laviolette said of the 31-year-old Domingue playing for his seventh franchise. “He really stepped up big for us.”

It was the first NHL appearance for Domingue in more nearly 19 months. For the Rangers, it was the first time since 1989-90 they had three goalies record wins in the team’s first 13 games. It was the seventh time already this season the Rangers didn’t allow more than one goal in a game.

4. Domingue was able to get an early cushion to work with because just like they did in Minnesota five nights earlier, the Rangers got on the board early. An Erik Gustafsson-to-Alexis Lafreniere-to-Vincent Trocheck goal gave the Rangers a 1-0 lead just 3:56 into the game.

How good has Gustafsson been? It’s hard to believe he had to take a one-year, $825,000 offer from the Rangers in the offseason. Now with three goals and nine assists this season, he has made the absence of the irreplaceable Fox hurt a little less.

5. The Wild were finally able to break through against Domingue at 12:33 of the second period when Brandon Duhaime scored For much of he second, the game had a similar feeling to the Rangers’ loss in Minnesota. The Wild controlled play for the entirety of the second, taking the first eight shots of the period, leading 11-1 in shots with seven minutes to go in the period and finishing the period with a 15-3 edge.

6. The Rangers regrouped during the intermission and responded with another pretty goal from the Lafreniere-Trocheck-Panarin line to take a 2-1 lead. It was the second even-strength goal of the game for that line that has played extremely well together since the shuffle was made before the 5-3 win over Detroit. After the trio each produced an even-strength point against the Red Wings, they came back and did the same against the Wild.

“He’s doing most of the forechecks for us,” Panarin said of Lafreniere after the line’s first game together against the Detroit. “Nice to see young guy working for the old guys.”

7. With just over seven minutes to go, the Rangers received their first power play of the game, and the second unit extended the lead to 3-1 when Blake Wheeler banged home a rebound for his first goal as a Rangers.

Lafreniere assisted on the Wheeler goal for the first three-point game of his carer. With a goal and two assists in the win, Lafreniere now has five goals and four assists on the season (a 32-goal, 25-assist, 57-point pace). Everything about his game looks improved and the trust and belief Laviolette has instilled in him is paying off.

Panarin had another Panarin game, continuing his streak of recording at least one point in every game this season. The 1.38 points per game he produced during his first season with the Rangers was remarkable and it’s hard to believe he’s currently destroying those numbers with 1.69 points per game this season to date. He’s currently on pace for 139 points.

8. Through 13 games, the Rangers have three losses and each loss can be clearly defined. In Game 2, after coming off their most complete performance in at least a decade, they laid an egg on the road against last season’s last-place Blue Jackets. In Game 4, they no-showed at home against the inferior Predators before embarking on a five-game, 10-day West Coast/Western Canada road trip. In Game 11 in Minnesota, they held a 3-0 lead just 6:53 into the game, and then were thoroughly dominated for the rest of the game on their way to a three-goal lead collapse (though they did manage to earn a point). Other than that, it’s been all wins. Blowout wins, hard-fought wins, come-from-behind wins, wins they didn’t deserve, shutout wins, you name it, and the 2023-24 Rangers have done it already.

“It’s never one thing,” Laviolette said of the team’s ability to win in so many ways. “It’s probably a combination of a bunch of different things.”

9. I don’t think anyone thought the Rangers would get off to this kind of start. The kind of start that is nearing a place where they can play .500 for the remainder of the season and still reach the playoffs. As of now, if the Rangers won only half of their remaining schedule, they would finish with 96 points. The Panthers were the last team in the playoffs last season with 92 points.

“You can have objectives and what you think is necessary to be successful,” Laviolette said about winning. “If you can check off eight out of 10 of those objectives and you can do it consistently, you probably find yourself winning hockey games.”

10. That’s where the Rangers find themselves: winning hockey games. They are atop the Metropolitan Division, sitting five points ahead of Carolina with a game in hand on the Hurricanes.

On Sunday, before enjoying a six-day break, the Rangers have a chance to extend their division-topping lead at home against last-place Columbus. I expect this game to play out differently than the second game of the season when the Rangers fell to the Blue Jackets in Columbus.

Vintage Ice Hockey is the only company that sells premium-quality jerseys, apparel and team merchandise for defunct minor league hockey franchises. It’s a family-run, hockey fan-driven company that’s committed to celebrating and preserving the legacies of defunct minor league hockey franchises. Check out their collection spanning over 100 years of minor league hockey and use code KTTC for 15% off your order!