The Rangers head into Tuesday night’s meeting with the Tampa Bay Lightning carrying plenty of momentum into Madison Square Garden, where they’ve been perfect so far this season. New York has won all four home games, the longest-active home winning streak in the league, and now gets Tampa Bay for the second time this season at 7:15 PM ET on MSG Network and ESPN 880 AM.
The numbers through seven games tell the bigger story. The Blueshirts are tied for the league lead with five wins, sit second in hits with 192, are tied for second in points with 10, and rank third in goals against per game at 1.86. They’ve also been tough to finish against, ranking fourth in blocked shots with 109 and tied for fourth in takeaways with 30.
New York’s start has been built on control. Through 21 periods, the Rangers have led or been tied after 18 of them, spending 253:05 of the season leading and another 140:47 dead even. They also just put up a season-high six goals on Sunday, and four of their seven games have featured at least four Rangers goals - tied for the most such games in the NHL.
That offense has paired with a disciplined defensive profile. The Rangers are tied for the league lead with five games in which they’ve allowed two goals or fewer, and they’re one of 10 teams to have posted a shutout. Their special teams have been sharp too, with a 28.6 power play percentage that ties them for sixth in the NHL and a penalty kill that’s gone 18-for-20, good for seventh at 90.0 percent.
The scoring margins have been tilted early and late. New York owns a plus-six goal differential in the first period and a plus-five mark in the third, and its plus-10 overall differential is tied for the best in the league. The defensemen have chipped in as well, with Rangers blueliners accounting for 12 assists, tied for seventh in the NHL.
One of the biggest sparks has been Alexis Lafrenière, who was named the NHL’s Third Star of the Week for the week ending Oct. 11, giving the Rangers back-to-back weeks with a player earning a league weekly star. Lafrenière has scored in three straight games for five goals during that stretch and has a point in four straight, going 5G-3A over that run. He leads the Rangers in goals and points, and his five goals tie him for sixth in the NHL.
His recent run has already included a third career hat trick on Oct. 6, one of five hat tricks in the league this season. He also had his second career four-point game that night and followed it by collecting his 57th career multi-point game on Oct.
- Since the 2022-23 season, his 50 multi-point games rank fifth among Rangers skaters.
Adam Fox is right there driving the attack from the back end. He has six assists through seven games, tying him for second among NHL defensemen in assists and fifth in points at the position.
He’s tied for the Rangers lead in assists and sits third on the team in points. On Oct.
1, Fox notched his 76th career multi-assist game as a Ranger, moving past James Patrick and into a tie with Ron Greschner for second in franchise history among defensemen. That performance also left him tied with Greschner and Mika Zibanejad for eighth-most multi-assist games by any Ranger.
Since 2019-20, Fox ranks third among all NHL defensemen in both multi-assist games and multi-point games.
Zibanejad has been just as central to the early push. He has seven points through seven games, with six assists tied for seventh in the NHL and tied for the team lead.
He ranks second on the club in points and is four away from tying Walt Tkaczuk for sixth-most points in franchise history. Among players with at least 100 faceoffs this season, Zibanejad ranks second in the NHL at 57.9 percent.
On Oct. 11, he picked up his 287th career power play point and 250th as a Ranger, becoming only the third Rangers skater to reach that mark. He also recorded his 174th career multi-point game and 78th multi-assist game that night, passing Artemi Panarin and Walt Tkaczuk on the franchise lists.
Zibanejad opened the Rangers’ power play scoring this season on Oct. 1 with the 137th power play goal of his career.
J.T. Miller has also settled in quickly, with points in four straight games at 1G-4A and his first multi-point game of the season coming on Oct.
- Since the 2021-22 season, he is the only NHL player with 400-plus points and 700-plus hits.
Over that same span, his 271 assists rank 12th in the league. His faceoff work has been strong too, with a 59.4 faceoff win percentage since the 2024-25 season that ties for third among players with at least 1,000 draws taken.
Tuesday’s matchup also carries a web of Tampa Bay connections on both sides. Oliver Bjorkstrand played 98 games for the Lightning across the 2024-25 and 2025-26 seasons, posting 17 goals and 24 assists for 41 points.
Miller spent parts of two seasons in Tampa Bay from 2017-18 to 2018-19 and finished with 23 goals and 42 assists in 94 games. Mike Sullivan was an assistant coach with the Lightning for parts of two seasons, from 2007-08 through 2008-09.
On the other bench, Ryan McDonagh returns to Madison Square Garden as a Lightning defenseman after eight seasons with the Rangers, where he played 516 games and totaled 51 goals and 187 assists for 238 points. Tampa Bay also has associate general manager and director of player personnel Jamie Pushor, who appeared in seven games for the Rangers in 2003-04, and assistant coach Jeff Halpern, who played 30 games for New York in 2012-13 and had one assist.
The game will also serve as Hispanic Heritage Night at MSG. Before puck drop, the Rangers, Garden of Dreams Foundation and MSG LatinX Employee Resource Group will host youth from Children’s Aid for a pregame arena tour and a discussion with MSG’s LatinX employees about their career paths and current roles.
As part of the Rangers’ Community Captain program, the team will honor Marielys Divanne on behalf of The Dominican Women’s Development Center with a $10,000 in-arena check presentation. The DWDC has spent 38 years working to improve quality of life through economic mobility, health, education, family stability and community engagement while promoting gender equality and justice.
In Other News...
Rangers Are Backing Up Contender Talk With A Start Fans Will Love
The early chatter around the Rangers as a contender is getting louder for a reason. They have opened the season undefeated in their first five home games, a start the franchise has matched only twice before, and they are pairing that kind of home-ice surge with production and structure across the board. New York sits atop the league with six wins and has also shown up near the top in goals against, goals scored and penalty kill percentage, which is the sort of across-the-board profile teams usually need if they want to look the part in the spring.
There has also been no shortage of individual momentum helping fuel it. Alexis Lafrenire, Dylan Garand, Mika Zibanejad, Adam Fox, Will Cuylle, J.T. Miller and Tye Kartye have all had notable stretches or milestones already, giving the roster a steady stream of contributors instead of leaning on one hot line or one standout night. Lafrenire, in particular, has become one of the most interesting pieces of that mix, and the way his scoring pace is building has added another layer to a team that is starting to feel like it may be backed by more than just a good first impression. [Read more 🡒]
Scott Morrow Is Stuck In A Rangers Roster Squeeze
Scott Morrow is still waiting for his first game of the season, and the logjam in front of him explains why. The Rangers have kept their blue line intact, with Sean Durzi and Braden Schneider both entrenched in the lineup, and there is little indication either one is headed for the press box anytime soon. For a club that has leaned on its defensive structure while searching for more consistency on the offensive side, Morrows profile still stands out as the kind of player who could help tilt the ice the other way.
The catch, of course, is that his game comes with questions on the defensive end, which makes the roster decision more complicated than simply finding an open spot. Unless the Rangers create room through an injury or a trade on the back end, Morrow may remain in a holding pattern while the group in front of him stays healthy and intact. For now, he is the lone skater on the roster without an appearance this season, which says as much about the teams depth chart as it does about his own place in it. [Read more 🡒]
Rangers Goalie Depth Suddenly Feels Far More Important Than Expected
Callum Tungs night in Hartford offered a promising snapshot of the Rangers organizational depth at a position that can change a season in an instant. The Wolf Pack goaltender turned aside 28 shots in a 2-0 win over Providence on Oct. 9, a performance that stood out on its own before New Yorks bigger-picture goalie concerns quickly made every crease performance feel a little more relevant.
The timing around the Rangers only sharpened the focus on what comes next. With Igor Shesterkin dealing with a right knee injury and Joonas Korpisalo also unavailable, New York has already recalled Spencer Martin and is expecting Dylan Garand to be the next man up, turning what once looked like routine depth into a far more urgent part of the conversation. [Read more 🡒]