The New York Rangers spent most of the first month of new coach Mike Sullivan’s tenure frustrated by an inability to win at home.
Dominant on the road, the Rangers hope to get rolling at home on Sunday night when they host the Detroit Red Wings.
New York was outscored 23-6 and went 0-6-1 in its first seven home games, setting a team record for the longest home winless skid to start a season. The streak ended with Monday’s 6-3 win over the Nashville Predators, a game in which Alexis Lafreniere and Artemi Panarin each scored two goals.
That victory began New York’s second three-game winning streak under Sullivan. The Rangers are returning home after a pair of different results in road games against the Tampa Bay Lightning and Columbus Blue Jackets.
After Vincent Trocheck scored twice and the Rangers netted four goals in the opening period of Wednesday’s 7-3 win at Tampa Bay, New York earned a 2-1 shootout victory over Columbus on Saturday. J.T. Miller scored the game-winning goal in the third round of the shootout while Trocheck also scored in the session.
Mika Zibanejad scored with the man advantage on Saturday. The Rangers enter Sunday with power-play goals in four of their past five games after scoring on the man advantage in three of their first 14 contests.
“I just think it’s evidence that we can win different ways,” Sullivan said. “I think a sign of a good team is when they have a comfort level playing in a one-goal game and a low-scoring game, and I believe that we’re developing that comfort level playing in a close, one-goal, low-scoring game.”
The Rangers are 7-2-0 in their past nine games, and one of those victories was a 4-1 win in Detroit on Nov. 7 when Panarin and Lafreniere scored 58 seconds apart in the second period.
The Red Wings are 2-4-1 in their past seven games since getting out to an 8-3-0 start.
Detroit squandered a three-goal lead and absorbed a 5-4 overtime loss to Buffalo on Saturday.
The Red Wings allowed the first goal of Buffalo’s comeback with 2:02 left in the second before yielding two more in a span of 5:03 in the first half of the third period, including the tying goal on a shorthanded breakaway.
“It goes back to (training camp), which is when we started talking about game management and learning how to play in certain situations,” Red Wings coach Todd McLellan said. “Clearly, we haven’t learned that lesson.”
“We had a three-goal lead with very little time left in the second period, but we just weren’t good enough in the third,” Detroit’s Lucas Raymond added. “We need to keep playing our game and stay under control. Tonight was definitely self-inflicted.”
Before the collapse Patrick Kane scored his 495th career goal, captain Dylan Larkin scored for the third straight game and Alex DeBrincat tallied twice for the second straight game.
The Rangers have won the past seven meetings and are 10-1-2 in the past 13 encounters.
