A very favorable schedule ahead for the Rangers

The New York Rangers are creeping up on their halfway point of the season and  a look at their remaining schedule is very promising. It’s one reason to believe that the Blueshirts will be able to retain their lofty position as one of the top playoff teams and not have to fight their way into the wild card.

From this point on they have the fewest number of games to play of any Eastern Conference contender with 43 games left in the season.  Not only that, they have played the most road games of any team in the NHL with only 19 road games left.

An even more remarkable fact is that of their remaining 43 games only four of them are outside of the Eastern Time Zone.  Those four games are when they have one long four-game road trip west, visiting Winnipeg, Minnesota, St. Louis and Dallas.  That’s it.

Postponements

The Rangers have had four games postponed this season (so far).  Only one of those games, versus the Islanders, has been rescheduled.   We are still waiting for the NHL to release its schedule for the season after January.   The Rangers still have 17 days off in February , when the Olympics were supposed to be taking place.

It would be ridiculous for the Rangers to play only their four regularly scheduled games along with the remaining three postponements in February.  That would mean seven games in February, followed by 15 games in March and 14 games in April.  The hope has to be that the league will completely revise the schedule and even out the workload.

How do the number of postponements for the Rangers compare to the rest of the Metropolitan Division?

• 4: Rangers, Washington
• 5:  Carolina, Pittsburgh , Philadelphia
• 7: Columbus, New Jersey
• 13: Islanders

The Metropolitan Division hasn’t been hit as hard as other teams in the NHL.  The Islanders have to make up the most game, 13, another reason why there is absolutely no chance that they will make the playoffs.  They have 51 games left to play with 101 calendar days left to play them.  Compare that to the Rangers who have 43 games left in those same 101 days.  Oh yes, the Isles are 16 points out of the final wild card spot too.

The challenge

So, with the playoffs almost guaranteed, the question is where the Rangers will finish in the Division.

We know that the Rangers can beat teams below them in the standings. They are 16-2-3 against teams out of the playoffs as of now. Those two losses were to Calgary when they were playing like one of the league’s best.

It’s how they play against the prime competition that will determine whether they will have home ice advantage in the playoffs.  It’s pretty much a given that the Rangers, along with Washington, Carolina and Pittsburgh will make the postseason. The Rangers play the Capitals twice and the Hurricanes and Penguins four times each.

That means that 10 of the last 43 games will be against the teams that will be battling for a spot at the top of the Division.  Not only that, they have two games left with Boston and one game each with Tampa, Florida and Toronto.  That’s  35% of the remaining schedule against the top seven teams in the Eastern Conference.

It’s those 15 games that will determine where the Rangers ended up in the Metropolitan Division standings.

It all starts this week when the Rangers take on Toronto at the Garden on Wednesday and in Raleigh versus the Hurricanes on Friday.