The Rangers' Season

Before heading out tomorrow for a 4-day business trip, I figured I should put down some thoughts on the 2006/07 New York Rangers season, which ended last night in Pittsburgh. Fortunately, they'll play on for at least four playoff games, but the season itself is now complete.

Obviously, the Rangers dug themselves into a huge hole in January and February, to the extent where I pronounced them dead, and then refused to believe they could make it all the way back out. I said, back on February 17th, that they'd have to go 16-8 in the final 24 games to make the playoffs. In fact, they did me one point better, going 14-5-5 - accumulating 33 pts, rather than the 32 pts they'd have gotten with a 16-8 record - and indeed grabbed a playoff spot during a race that saw six teams vying for three positions. Notably, they didn't 'back into' the playoffs, winning an important game against the Habs to clinch. Last night, though, they did secure 6th place in the East while losing, which would've been nicer if it had come via a win, or even an O/T or Shootout loss.

Overall, their season seemed to be made up of three parts. The early third of the season was pretty good, with them peaking somewhere around 8 games over .500, and sitting in the middle of the top 8 in the East. Then they fell off the rails, dropped to about the 10th or 11th spot in the East, and teetered right around .500, before pouring it on over the final third to finish, remarkably, 12 games above the breakeven mark. They also outright won more than half their games, as they scored victories in 42 of their 82 games, with only 30 regulation losses.

Comparing their stats to last season, 2006/07 looks like a worse year. While they finished in the same spot both years - 6th in the East - they had 6 more points last year, and lead their division for most of the season. However, comparing the way the regular campaigns ended tells a different tale. Last year the injury-ridden Rangers closed out with five consecutive losses, stumbling into the playoffs only to be humbled by the Devils in a series in which the once-mighty team didn't even win a single period! The 2007 version finished in a much stronger fashion, going 7-2-1 in their last 10 games. They're also relatively healthy, at least for the moment. What they'll do in this year's first round series with the Atlanta Thrashers is anyone's guess (I'm not making any more predictions!) I'm just glad they're going back to "the show!"