Rangers must continue to build on first-half turnaround in tight Metro

The Rangers have come a long way since their 11-10-5 start, but the challenge now, as they enter the second half of the season, will be to make sure that their efforts to turn it all around aren’t wasted. 

Somehow, after largely underperforming through October and November, the Blueshirts find themselves in the No. 1 wild-card spot in the East and five points ahead of the Penguins. Entering Monday, they’re just one point behind the third-place Capitals, two points behind the second-place Devils and six points behind the division-leading Hurricanes. 

The Metropolitan Division is quite literally anybody’s game and the Rangers cannot take their current positioning for granted. 

“It wasn’t easy, the first part,” head coach Gerard Gallant said when asked what his biggest takeaway from the first half of the season was after practice Monday at MSG Training Center. “We battled, and we played some good hockey games. I guess when you look at the big picture, it was far from perfect. But at the end of the day, after 41 games, I will take where we’re at right now. I think we pissed away maybe two or three games that we should have won, and in saying that, I thought we’ve played really well lately and we’re trending the right way and that’s what I like about our group. 

“We could’ve been in a worse position than we are, but we battled hard and the last 15 games I think we’ve got a pretty good record. We’re finding ourselves. We’ve won some big games on the road, got to get a better home record, but I think we’ve played outstanding hockey on the road for the most part. It’s tough, you look at our division every day and there’s good teams there, a lot of talent.” 

The Rangers seem to benefit from setting short-term goals for themselves, which they did when they put their minds toward finishing the final stretch before the holiday break strong. The new objective should be to sit among the top three teams in the Metro come the All-Star break, which will begin after the Jan. 27 matchup with the Golden Knights. 

Of the eight games they’ll compete in over that stretch, five will be against teams currently in the top three spots of their respective divisions. With contests against the Central Division-leading Stars, the No. 1 team in the NHL in the Bruins and the Maple Leafs in Toronto, it’s arguably one of the toughest spans of the season. 

It all begins with a three-game homestand, which commences Tuesday night at Madison Square Garden against former Ranger Ryan Reaves and the Wild. 

“I think when we’re competing, when we’re playing the way that we know we’re capable of playing with all 20 guys on the same page, we’ve beaten some really good teams, some of the best teams in the league,” Barclay Goodrow said. “And then, when we’re not doing that, we’ve lost to some of the worst teams in the league. The proof is there that when we do those things and we do the little things, when we’re all on the same page, we’re a really good team. 

“I think the last six weeks-ish, we’ve kind of put it together and made up for the poor start we had.”