Inside the Rangers’ Schedule: How Many Games Will the Rangers Win?

Camp is now fully underway with Torts and the boys back on the ice together prepping for the opener at Boston on Saturday January 19th. I take almost no joy in being nearly spot on with the Ranger’s camp roster, as well as almost nailing the initial lines, but I smirk and digress. Prognosticating wins and losses is usually something left for the NFL. With only 16 games it’s much easier to do a game by game breakdown and figure where your team might end up. In the NHL, with 82 games, there are simply too many variables. However, with this season’s strike shortened schedule, maybe we can make some educated guesses and at least ball park an over/under for the Ranger’s this year. I’m going to assume no ties, which is obviously a ridiculous assumption, but we will come back to that at the end.

Mar 27, 2012; St. Paul, MN, USA; New York Rangers head coach John Tortorella during the second period against the Minnesota Wild at the Xcel Energy Center. The Rangers deafeated the Wild 3-2. Mandatory Credit: Brace Hemmelgarn-USA TODAY Sports

Before we start with the predictions, it’s important to note that this is an all Eastern Conference schedule. Due to the shortened season the Ranger’s will not play any teams from the Western Conference. This will make each game all the more important, as if having only 48 wasn’t reason enough. They will play 18 games against teams in their own division,  and 15 games against teams from each the Northeast and Southeast divisions.

While the Devils are no slouches, presumably the two other teams to beat in the division, the Flyers and the Penguins, the Ranger’s play five times each. They play the Islanders and Devils four times each. With the rivalries in this division as strong as they are hard, it’s hard to expect the Rangers to go better than 3-2 against either the Flyers or the Penguins, and 2-3 against the other. While it might be a reasonable prediction that the Rangers will beat a young and growing Islander team 3 out of 4 games, the Devils are a scrappy bunch who always bring their best against the Rangers, 2-2 would be a solid record against their Hudson River rivals.  Counting all the division games that brings the Ranger’s to 10-8.

Let’s look at the rest of the schedule.

They must face the following teams three times: Toronto, Florida, Tampa Bay, Washington, Winnipeg, Boston, Buffalo, Montreal, Ottawa and Carolina.

Given where the teams finished last year, one would hope they could steal all three games from at least two of those ten teams. Bringing them to  16-8.  Playing averages, let’s say they go 2-1 against three of those other teams, 1-2 against three of the other teams, and 0-3 against the remaining 2. That would make for 15-15 against the non-divisional opponents. In reality, given how this Ranger team is built, they should and need to be better than that. For argument’s sake let’s say they go 18-12. That would have the ranger’s finishing at 28-20. 8 games over five hundred and probably somewhere in the middle of the pack in the East.

Now obviously this is gross speculation, just guesses to keep us having some fun this week, some of the losses will be ties, some of the wins will be ties. However I think given last year’s team, the new additions and the expectations for this team, 28 games season like a reasonable over/under? What do you think, how many games will the Ranger’s win? Take a  look at the Ranger’s schedule courtesy of newyorkrangers.com. Don’t forget to like us, and follow us on Twitter @jeffgonewild and @bluelinestation. Look for an in depth look into the Ranger’s face-off situation later in the week!

January 2013

February 2013

March 2013

April 2013