Going to the dirty areas, scoring more goals. (Photo: Adam Hunger/USA Today)

Photo: Adam Hunger/USA Today

With their 6-3 loss last night, the New York Rangers dropped to 0-3 against the Lightning, and the mood switched from positive –following a home-and-home sweep of the Flyers– to negative pretty quickly. It’s amazing how that works. But the best teams in the league do two things consistently: Beat up on bad teams and stay around .500 against good teams.

So far, the Rangers have played 13 games against teams likely headed to the playoffs and 11 games against likely non-playoff teams. Keyword here is likely, based on current record, division, and #fancystats known to predict rise/fall of playoff contenders and pretenders (FF close, PDO). Part of the equation here is when the Rangers played certain teams as well, which –as full disclosure– I did not factor into this post. Nor did I factor in home/away splits, since the Rangers seem to play better on the road anyway.

  • Playoff bound teams (likely)
    • St. Louis – 1-0-1
    • Islanders – 0-1
    • San Jose – 1-0
    • Minnesota – 1-0
    • Montreal – 1-1
    • Tampa Bay – 0-3
    • Detroit – 1-0
    • Pittsburgh – 1-0-1
    • Total – 6-5-2
  • Non-Playoff teams (likely)
    • Columbus – 0-1
    • Toronto – 0-2
    • Carolina – 1-0
    • New Jersey – 1-0
    • Winnipeg – 0-0-1
    • Philly – 3-0
    • Edmonton – 0-1
    • Colorado – 0-0-1
    • Total – 5-4-2

The Rangers have actually fared much better against the playoff teams than the non-playoff teams thus far, but they did catch Columbus and Toronto in the beginning of the season when they were dealing with a number of injuries. They also caught Winnipeg during that absurd goaltending stretch they had. So, there’s a grain of salt to be taken in that 5-4-2 record.

The December schedule is a cupcake schedule for the Rangers as well. Following games against Detroit, Pittsburgh and Vancouver next week, the Rangers play eight of their next nine against non-playoff teams. Naturally, we’d like them to go 8-0 in those games, but in all likelihood that won’t happen. However, expecting a solid record in those eight games (something along the lines of 5-2-1)  isn’t unfair.

The Rangers have a chance in December to put some distance between themselves and that dreaded final wild card spot, which right now is a fight between Washington and Toronto. The Rangers are better than both of those clubs, but there really isn’t a need to put unnecessary stress on themselves. Posting a solid record in those eight games against non-playoff teams –and staying above .500 against the playoff teams– goes a long way towards fan sanity.

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