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Rangers schedule analysis, team opens 2022-23 campaign vs. Tampa Bay |
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The NHL released it’s 2022-23 schedule Wednesday. Two games in Europe starting October 7 kick off the season. In a rematch between the two teams that met in the Eastern Conference Finals, New York opens the season at home October 11 against Tampa.
The season starts pretty much on time and ends similarly, closing on April 13. New York opens the year with a heavy home schedule, playing five of heir first seven games at MSG, as well as nine of their first 14 contests at home. Conversely, they close the season with seven of their last 11 on the road, though their final two games of the year are on home ice.
If weekend games are your jam, almost one-third of the games this year, 26 in fact, take place on Saturday or Sunday. Nine of those games will be at home. in addition, seven contests, fairly evenly split with three at home and four on the road, will be on a Friday.
The longest home stand of the year is a five-game stretch from March 14-21 (vs. WSH, PIT (2x), Nashville, Carolina). On the flip side, the Blueshirts will have three road trips that includes four games (Nov. 17-23, Feb. 11-18, March 4-12), its longest trips of the season. As such, of the 41 games on the road, almost 30%, 12 in total, are grouped into three trips.
The team’s busiest month is March, when they play 16 games. New York will also play 10 games in October, 14 in November, 13 in December, 12 in January, 11 in February, and six in April. As seen from the breakdown, 37 contests take place before the calendar flips to 2023 with 45 games played in 2023. The All-Start break is from January 28 to February 5.
New York is set to play in 16 sets of back-to-back games, beginning with their first two road games in Minnesota (Oct. 13) and Winnipeg (Oct. 14). That number of back-to-backs is actually more than we have seen in the calendar for the Rangers in recent memory. That signifies having a good backup goalie is a must to give Igor Shesterkin proper rest, especially down the stretch.
Due to the way the schedule works, New York only faces the Islanders three times this season. To add more inanity to that number, the last time the division rivals meet will be December 22, right before the Xmas break. I am all for facing the Western Division rivals home-and-away, and realize that comes at the expense of the match ups within the division, but three or four times just seems awfully low.
The Rangers face Calgary on my older daughter’s birthday and Nashville on my parents’ anniversary. New York is off for the Xmas break from December 23-27. The Blueshirts do not play on New Years’ Eve but are in Florida, which is a nice warm locale, to face the Panthers on New Years’ Day.
New York Rangers Blogger • 
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