Rangers make wrong kind of history with another shutout loss 

The 2025-26 New York Rangers season began with a lot of excitement due to the arrival of two-time Stanley Cup champion head coach Mike Sullivan. Things have not been off to a smooth start however, especially when it comes to their home games, and it has resulted in them making some rather infamous history through their first three home games.

They have not scored a goal, losing 3-0, 1-0 and 2-0 decisions to the Pittsburgh Penguins, Washington Capitals and Edmonton Oilers. The latest of those decisions came on Tuesday night in a 2-0 loss to Edmonton.

Rangers make NHL history, but not the good kind

With a third consecutive shutout at home to open the season, the Rangers became the first team in the modern era of the NHL to ever have that happen. Between the three games they are now at 180 consecutive minutes on home ice without scoring a goal.

The only team that has ever topped that streak to open a season was the now-defunct Pittsburgh Pirates during the 1928-29 season when they went 187 minutes without a goal at the Duquesne Gardens.

The previous record goal-less drought in the modern NHL belonged to the Florida Panthers who went 155 minutes during the 2001-02 season. 

What has to make this goal drought so frustrating for the Rangers is they are not actually playing poorly in these games. At least not the past two games. The Rangers largely carried the play against both the Capitals and Oilers, significantly out-shooting and out-chancing them.

During Tuesday's game, for example, the Rangers generated 11 high-danger scoring chances during 5-on-5 play to only three for the Oilers. That sort of territorial and scoring chance edge is usually enough to generate a win.

It was a similar story over the weekend against the Capitals.

A lot of that comes down to the opposing goaltending playing well. 

But something to keep an eye on for the Rangers this season is that Sullivan's most recent Penguins teams consistently had the same issue. It was not uncommon for the Penguins to out-chance their opponents, or even finish near the top of the league in scoring chances, but never actually produce enough goals to consistently win. There was always a significant gap between their scoring chances and their actual goals. 

In smaller sample sizes you can chalk that up to bad luck. 

Over the course of multiple seasons it is enough to make you wonder if it is something bigger. 

Sullivan is an outstanding tactical coach. It is possible his system consistently puts players into the right position to create chances, while he does not always have the personnel — or use the correct personnel— to turn them into goals. It is still too small of a sample size with the Rangers to know if it will be a season-long trend again, but it is definitely an interesting start.