Nov 1, 2026; New York, New York, USA; Edmonton Oilers center Connor McDavid (97) shoots the puck past New York Rangers goaltender Dylan Garand (33) for a goal in the first period at Madison Square Garden. Mandatory Credit: Wendell Cruz-Imagn Images
It’s amazing how quickly a season can hit freefall mode, and it feels like that’s happening in Manhattan right now. Entering Tuesday, the New York Rangers had dropped their last four games and fell to 7-7-1.
Goal scoring hasn’t been an issue in this skid; they only scored one goal against the Edmonton Oilers on Sunday night, but scored a combined 11 goals in the other three games. The biggest problem for the Blueshirts has been the one issue everyone could pinpoint as soon as Igor Shesterkin got hurt: goaltending.
Dylan Garand has come back down to Earth after an otherworldly start; he has an .847 save percentage over these last four games. James Reimer was called up from the Hartford Wolf Pack to back up Garand, but was pulled in the first period of the Rangers game against the Los Angeles Kings after giving up three goals on nine shots.
The loss to Edmonton was especially concerning. The Rangers had five days off in between their loss to Los Angeles, perhaps the perfect opportunity to reset, while the Oilers were on the second half of a back-to-back and starting Matt Tomkins, who had not started an NHL game in two and a half years. What should have been a get-right game became a 4-1 loss that Garand took particularly hard.
“Honestly, I felt really, really good in the second 30 minutes, and I thought my first 30 minutes was awful,” he said. “Honestly, inexcusable. Let the guys down. Pretty disappointing; put that loss on me.”
New York’s solid start still has them in a decent position; their 15 points are only one behind the Metropolitan Division’s third-place team, the Washington Capitals. But it feels like they will need to start banking wins quickly; American Thanksgiving is often used as a benchmark for teams’ playoff hopes. Seventy-seven percent (77%) of teams who are in a postseason spot by the holiday make the playoffs, and if the Rangers want to keep their postseason ambitions alive, and maybe even force general manager Chris Drury into making some moves, they will almost certainly need to be firmly in the playoff conversation by Nov. 26.
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