The Rangers will carry the longest active win streak in the NHL (four games) into their matchup with the Capitals on Friday night in Washington, D.C.
At this point in the season last year, the walls of the 2025-26 campaign were already beginning to close in on the Blueshirts as they went their first three home games without a single goal and had already lost three of their first five games by infuriating margins.
Head coach Mike Sullivan can already feel how the early success has affected his team.
“I think it makes a world of difference,” the second-year Rangers coach said before the club ventured to the nation’s capital following practice. “When you can stack wins on top of one another, it breeds confidence. Confidence is required to have success. I think the group has done a great job in just buying into the team game. Everybody’s accepting of the roles we’ve cast them in. There’s a level of enthusiasm around the group that, for me, is a whole lot of fun to be a part of.
“We can feel it. We can feel it in the locker room. We can feel it inside of our confines. When we go out, we’re playing the game, it’s tangible. You can hear it on the bench. An indication of it for me, you look at our third periods. Playing with leads. Just our continued ability to play on our toes and bring an aggressive approach in a responsible way. Not playing not to lose. We’re playing to win.
“It’s fun to watch these guys play and perform that way. I think there are great lessons in that. We’re going to try to continue to encourage them in some of the things we’re doing well and why we’re having success. There are areas where we know we can grow and improve and get better, and we’re working with those as well.
“This is the journey, every year, when you go to start training camp and it’s a clean slate. A new season. It’s a whole new journey. It’s been a whole lot of fun to coach these guys to this point.”
It’s still early in the season, but the Rangers have led (184:15) or been tied (111:58) in 296:14 of 300 minutes so far.
The shutout loss in Boston to open the season has been an outlier compared to the other four games the Rangers have had.
With the 20-year-old Cole Beaudoin recalled from Hartford, the Rangers officially have the youngest roster in the NHL with an average age of 26.47.
Allowing two or fewer goals in all four games he’s played, the most among all goaltenders so far this season, Rangers netminder Igor Shesterkin is off to an electric start.
Since the 2019-20 season, the 172 times Shesterkin has allowed two or fewer goals rank fifth among all NHL goalies. He has also allowed one or fewer goals 94 times in his career, which amounts to the third most among goalies in that same span.
