Rangers ‘need to stay the course’ amid home scoring drought

NEW YORK -- Mika Zibanejad paused for a second and then summed up perhaps how every member of the New York Rangers is feeling right now.

“I don’t know whether to laugh or cry,” the Rangers center said.

What else can you say after the Rangers were shut out at home for the third straight game to start the season, the latest a 2-0 loss to the Edmonton Oilers at Madison Square Garden on Tuesday.

In doing so, they became the first team in NHL history to get shut out in three straight home games to the start the season.

Even before the game ended, they broke the previous modern record of being held scoreless at home to start the season, passing the 2021-22 Florida Panthers’ mark of 1:55:17.

Only the Pittsburgh Pirates, who last played in 1930 before becoming the Philadelphia Quakers, went longer at home without a goal to start the season, going scoreless in the first 1:87:19 of the season at home in 1928-29. Those games featured 10-minute overtimes, so even though their time is longer, they did score in their third game.

Captain J.T. Miller said despite the record for scoring futility, the Rangers have played good hockey at home -- especially in their past two games -- and the drought should not be “blown out of proportion.”

“First of all, let’s not make this bigger than it is,” Miller said. “It’s game five. There is a lot to like about our game. It’s a unique situation.”

The Rangers (2-3-0) opened the season with a 3-0 home loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins on Oct. 7, then won 4-0 at the Buffalo Sabres on Oct. 9 and 6-1 at the Penguins on Oct. 11. They returned home on Sunday and fell 1-0 to the Washington Capitals before getting blanked again Tuesday.

“I think we’re creating a lot of chances, but we’re not scoring. Simple," Zibanejad said. "Obviously, we need to bear down and score on the chances we get, but it would be a different thing if we weren’t creating chances and we were giving up chance after chance.

“It’s frustrating but we have to stick with it.”

The Rangers had several chances to score Tuesday, generating 30 shots on Edmonton goalie Stuart Skinner. They also hit the crossbar behind Skinner three times, the first by Adam Fox at 5:25 of the first period. Braden Schneider hit it again at 1:55 of the second, and later in the period, Sam Carrick came in alone and also rang a shot off the crossbar at 14:52.

“What did we have in the second period? We hit the crossbars or (hit a post) that goes right by the goal line,” Zibanejad said.

Perhaps their best chance came with 2:31 left in the game when Carrick, the fourth-line center, again skated in but was robbed almost point-blank on a slick glove save by Skinner.

“(Backup goalie Calvin) Pickard told me right after the game (about the shutout streak), and I was honestly pretty shocked because I don’t think looking at them, I wouldn’t imagine," Skinner said. "They were fighting, they were battling. … I don’t know how the other two games went.”

Although the Rangers admittedly came out flat in the opener against the Penguins, they looked sharp on Sunday against the Capitals and again on Tuesday. In the three home shutout losses, they have outshot their opponents by a combined 90-74, including outshooting Washington 35-21.

“We’re getting a lot of chances. This is a unique start to a season, and it [stinks] that we had a couple of games where we feel like we’ve really thrown a lot at the other team and we’re not getting rewarded,” Miller said. “I think it’s on us to make sure that the mindset stays the same in here and we don’t go off the grid to find something.

“We need to stay the course. Over time, the results will come.”

The Rangers play their next two games on the road -- at the Toronto Maple Leafs on Thursday and at the Montreal Canadiens on Saturday -- before returning to the Garden on Oct. 20, when they will host the Minnesota Wild.

Perhaps even more frustrating for the Rangers is the fact that opponents aren’t scoring either. In the three home games, opponents have scored just one per game against a goalie -- the Penguins scored two empty-net goals on opening night and the Oilers’ second goal Tuesday was into the empty net.

Coach Mike Sullivan said he was pleased with how the Rangers have played defensively this season and it’s only a matter of time before the goals start coming at home.

“I think the guys are buying into it, and we’re becoming more difficult to play against as a result,” Sullivan said. “If we weren’t generating scoring chances it would be a different conversation, but we believe, based on everything that we’re watching and tracking, we believe that it’s not sustainable that the puck’s not going to go into the net if we continue to generate the types of looks that we generated.

“If we can combine our stinginess defensively and our willingness to do the little things that make us harder to play against, and we continue to generate the looks that we have, we believe that this group will pull itself out of it.”