Everything was coming up New York Rangers for the first two months of the season.
Not only were the Blueshirts sitting pretty with an eight-point cushion atop the NHL Metropolitan Division thanks to an 18-4-1 start under new coach Peter Laviolette, but the rest of the Metro looked a bit of a shambles.
The Carolina Hurricanes and New Jersey Devils couldn’t get a save, the Islanders and Pittsburgh Penguins were messy and the Philadelphia Flyers were a nice surprise but didn’t have the firepower to keep up with the Blueshirts.
It looked as if the Rangers were a real threat to go wire-to-wire in the division.
Six weeks and 24 games later, the outlook for the season has changed completely.
The Blueshirts are still on top of the Metro, but their lead over the Hurricanes had shrunk to two points — and judging by the collective form of the two, you’d have to give a slight edge to Carolina right now.
The good news for the Rangers is that they should have a decent chance to get back on track with a win Friday night.
It may look strange to see the struggling Blueshirts priced as a decent home favorite over the defending Stanley Cup champions, but the Vegas Golden Knights are dealing with a litany of injury issues at the moment.
Jack Eichel, Shea Theodore and William Karlsson are all on the sidelines for Bruce Cassidy’s team, but that hasn’t derailed the Knights from their quest to challenge for the top spot in the Pacific Division.
Vegas is 5-1-1 in its past seven contests and has taken three of four points in the first two legs of their three-game swing through the New York City area.
Vegas’ 3-2 win against the Islanders on Tuesday night wasn’t pretty, but it gives you an idea of how this team will need to play with three of its most important players on the injured list.
The Knights gave up plenty of shots, but their defensive structure below the dots held up and they were clinical in front of the Islanders’ goal.
The mark of a championship team is to win games that you may not deserve to, and Vegas did just that Tuesday.
With so much offensive firepower on the sidelines I’d look for the Knights to deploy a similar bend-but-don’t-break strategy against the Rangers, especially since this is the first game of Vegas’ second back-to-back of the week.
That defense-first mentality should also jibe with how the Rangers want to play.
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The Blueshirts have struggled to find any sort of consistency since the beginning of December, which could lead to a more conservative approach from Laviolette as he tries to get his team to simplify things and get back to the defensive structure that propelled it to that terrific start.
Throw in the fact that the Rangers simply haven’t been great at five-on-five this season and you have a lot of indicators pointing to this being a low-event contest between two teams that won’t want to take any risks for different reasons.
That should put value on the Under 6 (-122, DraftKings) and — if you’re feeling a bit frisky — betting the game to go to overtime (+360, DraftKings).
BET: Under 6 (-122, DraftKings); Game to go to overtime (+360, DraftKings)