New York Rangers: How did their mini-vacation affect their position in the lottery standings?

After Wednesday, the entire NHL joins the New York Rangers on vacation.  The Blueshirts haven’t played since Saturday.  Did the 20 games played while they were off have an effect on their Rangers’ quest for a good lottery position?

First, let’s look at the playoff standings and where the New York Rangers are going into the All-Star break.  They are still on the outside looking in.  With 49 points, they remain nine points behind the Pittsburgh Penguins, sitting in the first wild card slot.

The playoff race in the East has become closer due to some slumping teams. The Capitals are in a freefall, losing seven games in a row.  If any Ranger fans think the Blueshirts’ five game losing streak earlier this month was bad, get this.  While the Rangers allowed 26 goals in those five games, the Caps have allowed 30 goals in their last five losses.

As far away as a playoff berth seems for the Rangers, if they were in the Western Conference, they would be three points out of the wild card with two games in hand and we’d be talking about what it will take to make the playoffs instead of who to trade at the deadline.

The Lottery Look

But the playoffs are just a dream at this point of the season so it’s time to look at how the games Wednesday affected the lottery standings.  Five lottery teams were in action, but the impact on the Rangers was minimal.   The Rangers remained as the tenth worst in the league. They remain six points ahead of Ottawa, the worst team in the league.

The one game that did impact the Rangers was the Blues 5-1 win over the Anaheim Ducks.  With the win, St. Louis ties the Rangers in points, but have  played one more game.    With the loss, Anaheim remains only two points ahead of the Rangers and have played three more games.

Montreal didn’t do the Rangers any favors by beating the Coyotes 2-1.  Arizona remains a scant one point ahead of the Rangers and have played two extra games.

Carolina beat the Canucks 5-2 in Vancouver in a meeting of two lottery teams.  The win moved the Hurricanes five points ahead of New York while Vancouver remains three points better.  Both of those teams have played more games than the Rangers, not good.

The standings (Worst is first)

Teams                  GP         W-L-OTL     PTS   ROW
1. Ottawa               50       19-26-5      43     19
2. New Jersey       48       18-23-7       43     17
3. Chicago              51      17-24-10     44     17
4. Los Angeles      50        20-26-4     44      19
5. Philadelphia      48       19-23-6      44      17
6. Detroit                51       19-25-7      45      17
7. Florida                 47      20-20-8      48      18
8. Edmonton         50       23-24-3      49      21
9.  St. Louis           49      22-22-5       49     22
10.  Rangers         48       21-20-7      49      16
11. Arizona             50       23-23-4      50      21
12. Anaheim          51       21-21-9      51     18
13. Vancouver       51       23-22-6      52     22
14.  Carolina          50       24-20-6      54     23
15.  Buffalo            48       24-18-6      54     21

Who to root for

There are no games until Monday and the Rangers are off until Tuesday.   If you want to root for somebody, root for the Hartford Wolfpack who play Binghamton on Friday and Charlotte on Saturday.   They need the support having lost their last three games.  Poor Alexandar Georgiev gave up six goals in his first start Wednesday as the Pack lost 7-4 to Springfield.

So, what changed?

Interestingly enough, not much.  Going into their bye week, the Rangers were tenth from the bottom of the NHL standings.  With their bye week over, they find themselves tenth from the bottom.   Arizona won enough to pass the Rangers, but Edmonton didn’t win a game and  dropped below the Rangers in the standings with the same number of points, but having played more games.

On a positive note, at the beginning of the break, the Rangers were eight points away form the worst team in the league (Chicago).  Now, they are six points out of last place.

One negative is that of the fifteen teams vying for a lottery position, only one team (Florida) has played fewer games than the Rangers.  Three  teams have played the same number of games while ten teams have played more games than the Rangers.  This is one situation where games in hand are not a positive.

The Lottery Look will be on hiatus until Monday when the Flyers and Devils will be in action while the Ranger don’t play until Tuesday.