NEW YORK - The Anaheim Ducks’ perfect start on the road came to a hard stop at Madison Square Garden.
The New York Rangers controlled the night from the opening minutes and handed Anaheim a 5-2 loss Monday, leaving the Ducks 3-1 away from home and giving the Rangers another win on their unbeaten home ice.
This one got away fast. The Rangers scored in the first two minutes for the third straight home game, with Sean Durzi beating Ville Husso at 1:18 for his second goal of the season.
From there, Anaheim spent most of the night chasing. The Ducks never found much rhythm against Dylan Garand, and the Rangers’ rookie-heavy, reshuffled lineup kept applying pressure.
J.T. Miller added to the lead on the power play early in the second period, then Gabe Perreault made it 3-0 at 10:17 of the middle frame. Oliver Bjorkstrand, one of New York’s new faces this season, pushed it to 4-0 at 13:14 of the second and struck again early in the third.
Anaheim’s offense finally showed up only late, when Nick Jensen scored with 1:09 left and A.J. Greer followed with 33 seconds remaining to trim the final margin. Jensen was making his first appearance with the Ducks after signing as a free agent over the summer.
"That was my first game of the season but I felt like we were all in the same boat out there with the travel yesterday," Jensen said. "We win as a team and lose as a team.
We just have to learn from this. We're right back at it tomorrow so we just have to have a short memory and let this one go."
The Ducks arrived in New York after a 15-hour travel grind from the West Coast because of mechanical issues with their original charter jet, and they looked every bit like a team dealing with a rough travel day. Joel Quenneville didn’t hide his frustration afterward.
"I thought our top guys weren't very good tonight," Ducks coach Joel Quenneville said. "We didn't have much going early. They were in control."
He added later: "Some pucks around our net were kind of sloppy. Score was flattering at the end of the night," Quenneville said. "It's one of those nights where defense... seam passes... playing with a cane instead of a hockey stick."
Garand finished with 28 saves and lost his shutout only in the final minute. The Rangers’ backup-turned-starter has had to carry the load with Igor Shesterkin out for the season after suffering an injury at Washington on Oct.
- Garand, who was waived by New York before the season and went unclaimed, is now 4-2-1 after making his NHL debut late last season following four years in the AHL.
For New York, the 5-2 result extended a strong start at home to 6-0-0, a sharp contrast from last season’s struggle in its own building. The Rangers finished the 2025-26 season last in the Eastern Conference with 77 points, and they needed until March 29 to earn their sixth home win in regulation. This year, the early returns have looked completely different.
The Ducks, meanwhile, were coming off a 4-2 home loss to Boston on Friday, and the road trip opened with another rough lesson. Anaheim’s new faces were on display too, with first-round picks Roger McQueen and Nikita Klepov and defensemen Noah Warren and Trevor Hinds in the mix, along with top scorers Leo Carlsson and Beckett Sennecke. None of them could tilt the night back in Anaheim’s favor.
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