Rangers Struggles At Home Are Officially Mind-Boggling With Wild, Unwanted Milestone
The Rangers might want to consider only playing on the road...
It's no secret that the New York Rangers aren't just riding the struggle bus this season; they've practically hijacked it and are taking it on a joy(less)ride.
As of Tuesday, the Broadway Blueshirts are sitting dead last in the Metropolitan Division with just 54 points, 6 points back from the seventh-place New Jersey Devils, and are currently 30th in the entire 32-team NHL.
To be down this badly requires some serious struggles, but nowhere have those been bigger than, of all places, at home inside Madison Square Garden.
In fact, following their loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets on Monday night, the New York Rangers have not won a game in regulation at home in 99 days.
That's right, an MSG crowd has not seen the Rangers win in 60 minutes since before Thanksgiving.
Two weeks or so of those 99 days were the Olympic break, but still.
This has been an issue for the Rangers all season long, and it's just mind-blowing to see a team have trouble at home like this.
The common belief is that teams have an advantage at home. Sure, some would argue that this has little impact, but the stats seem to support the idea that the home team does have an advantage.
In fact, if you look at the eight teams in the Metropolitan Division, seven of them have win percentages at home over .500.
The Rangers are, of course, the one that doesn't.
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Who knows what the reason for this is? One thing that I thought of is that Madison Square Garden is known to have one of the worst ice-surfaces in the NHL, and the Rangers are the one team that has to play on it 41 times a year.
But they've been doing this for decades, and the visiting team is playing on the same sheet, so…
Whatever the case, the Rangers are 7-15-6 at home, while 16-14-2 on the road.
GM Chris Drury has already written a letter to fans and sold off some key pieces over the last two seasons, like Jakob Trouba, Chris Kreider, and, most recently, Artemi Panarin, with more to come in all likelihood.