The New York Rangers and Detroit Red Wings are trying to rebound from losses. The first order of business is to score a goal.
Both teams endured shutout defeats in their last outing — the Rangers fell to Carolina 3-0 on Tuesday while the Red Wings were blanked by Vegas 1-0 the same night. They’ll meet up in Detroit on Friday night.
Scoring struggles have been the norm for the Rangers this season. In seven of their eight losses, including overtime, they have scored one or no goals. Their power play has been punchless, converting on just four of 36 opportunities.
“I don’t know, honestly,” forward Mika Zibanejad said of the scoring woes. “We keep talking about having good looks. We keep talking about the stuff we do well and try to build on it. I feel like we’re at three or four or maybe five Grade-As and we don’t score. The puck just has got to go in.
“Other than that we have to keep going. We have to find a way to put the puck in the net. I don’t know. I don’t think I’ve ever been a part of something like this before in terms of getting looks and not scoring. It’s frustrating.”
Most of their troubles have come at home, including the matchup with the Hurricanes. All six of New York’s victories have occurred on the road.
“These guys are human, they care a lot about what’s going on,” Rangers coach Mike Sullivan said. “Of course we want to be a team that prides itself on being good at home, being stingy at home, making this a tough place for people to play. I thought when you look at how the game was played in the first two periods there was a lot to like about our game. Some of the quality looks, I’m not sure we could get better looks.”
For the Red Wings, the loss to the Golden Knights capped a 3-2 road trip.
“It was a close game,” coach Todd McLellan said. “There were chances both ways, but the goaltenders stood in there fairly well. We gave ourselves a chance to win. It would have been nice to have been a little more effective on, at least, the one full power play that we had. That may have been our opportunity, but just not enough sustained offensive time.”
Detroit now enters a stretch in which it will play seven of eight games at home.
The Red Wings carry a five-game home winning streak into Friday’s contest. Their lone loss at home came in their season opener against Montreal.
“Very exciting,” team captain Dylan Larkin said. “It’s always a tough challenge to come back home after a long trip out west. We’re going to have to be ready, and it’s going to be exciting. We’ve built some momentum, and we’ll have great crowds. We want to continue where we left off at home and that’s the exciting part.”
Larkin leads Detroit in scoring with eight goals and 18 points.
–Field Level Media
