Make New York Post a Preferred Source The scenes at the Garden last season — especially at the end of it all — were jarring. This wasn’t the home-ice advantage the Rangers envisioned, the venue that always remained energized for deep postseason runs stretching into the final weeks of spring.
Instead, empty seats were scattered throughout the arena. “Fire Drury” chants rang out on occasion in the middle of the year, referencing the fanbase’s desire for change at the top of the front office that assembled the roster that ultimately went 14-20-7 at home — the second-worst mark in the league. The Blueshirts’ 35 points marked their fewest at the Garden across a full season since 2003-04 (33). They had a minus-19 goal differential, started 0-6-1 and didn’t manage a goal in front of the home crowd until the fourth game.
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The way last year went gives them “a little more extra motivation,” Alexis Lafrenière said. Braden Schneider, referencing the Knicks championship run, added that “there’s no better place to play when you’re winning and you’re in the playoffs” — and that the Rangers need to make playing at home a strength. And beginning Thursday, when the Rangers host the Lightning in their home opener following a shutout loss to the Bruins that opened the season on a sour note, they’ll have a chance to start shaking one of the lingering narratives.
“Everyone knows we struggled last year, especially at home, so it’s a big game for us,” Lafrenière told The Post after the Rangers practiced Wednesday in Tarrytown.
It wasn’t that long ago when the Rangers had one of the best home records. In 2023-24, they went 30-11-0 at the Garden — finishing with the second-most home points (60) — and collected a plus-29 goal differential. But that’s when everything started to crumble, when the first-year boost of Peter Laviolette faded into a second-year step back with the arrival of Mike Sullivan, and the Rangers haven’t been able to recapture that distinct advantage since.
Last year marked the nadir. They were shut out in their MSG opener. In their second and third home games too. Adam Fox told The Post that the Rangers didn’t feel bad about their games at home — a sentiment echoed throughout that 180-minute shutout streak to open the year at the Garden — but just couldn’t land a goal.
When Mika Zibanejad, during his scrum with reporters Wednesday, fielded a question about the home struggles and was told how players were certainly aware of that, he smiled and said, “Oh, yeah.” The storyline followed them all season.
Sullivan used a line Wednesday that he uttered during training camp, saying the Rangers are a “forward-thinking group” who’ve moved on from 2025-26, and there was enough change in the offseason for that to be the case. The Blueshirts have the second-youngest roster in the league, an average of 26.63 years old. Eleven of 23 players didn’t skate in their home opener last year. History is on the Rangers’ side too, as they’ve earned at least a point in four of their last five home openers.
“You want to establish yourself at home early and make that be a strength of your team,” Schneider told The Post. “I think all good teams, you go to their building and you dread playing there. I definitely think it’s a point of emphasis for us, that we make it hard for teams to come in.”
So in the short-term equation of their season, Thursday will mark a chance for the Rangers to fix what went wrong in their season-opening loss to the Bruins — when so many of the issues that plagued this group before reappeared. They gave up too many chances. They couldn’t produce a goal.
But in the long-term trajectory, in an effort to return to the playoffs for the first time since 2023-24, the Lightning match will serve as a chance to stop the boos. To avoid empty seats and chants about firing. To take the framing Sullivan used — that the Rangers have a “whole new season” and a “whole new group of players” skating at an “unbelievable place to play” in front of a “passionate fanbase” — and turn the optimism into tangible results.
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To make the Garden a daunting rink for opponents again.
“You want to protect home ice whenever you can and use it to your advantage,” Fox said, “and that wasn’t the case last year for us. Fortunately for us, it’s a new year. Different look to the group, so that’s kinda in the past and just try to get off on the right foot [Thursday].”
