Rangers open next season at home vs. lightning - harchi90

Rangers open next season at home vs. lightning

MONTREAL — The Rangers will start the 2022-23 season with a chance to set the tone against the very team that knocked them out of the 2021-22 playoffs.

Playing the first game of the season in North America — four days after the Predators and Sharks open the campaign in Prague — the Rangers will open Oct. 11 at Madison Square Garden against the Lightning, who ended the Blueshirts’ longest playoff run in seven years.

In contrast to last season, the Rangers will play five of their first seven games (as well as nine of their first 14 contests) at home. Their longest homestand will be a five-game stretch from March 14-21, when they’ll face the Capitals, Predators, Hurricanes and the Penguins twice.

The Rangers are also scheduled for 16 sets of back-to-back games, which will begin with their first two road games, at Minnesota on Oct. 13 and at Winnipeg on Oct. 14. They also have 16 games packed into March, their busiest month of the season.

The Rangers also will make three four-city road trips, beginning with one in November when they travel to play Seattle, San Jose, Los Angeles and Anaheim. They will also have games at Carolina, Vancouver, Edmonton and Calgary in mid-February before embarking on their longest trip of the season, from March 4-12, when they visit Boston, Montreal, Buffalo and Pittsburgh. The Rangers are scheduled to compete in seven games that begin at 4 pm or earlier, including four 1 pm start times.

The Islanders will begin next season under much different circumstances than 2021-22, when they opened with a 13-game road schedule, which was necessary while they waited for UBS Arena to be completed. Their first four games of the season will be played at home before their first back-to-back contests in Florida, against the Lightning and Panthers, on Oct. 22 and Oct. 23.

Artemi Panarin (10) and the Rangers will open the 2022-23 NHL season hosting the Lightning.
Charles Wenzelberg/New York Post

The Rangers and Islanders will square off on Long Island on Oct. 26, the only one of three matchups between the two teams at UBS Arena.

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