NEW YORK — It’s been 180 days since the Madison Square Garden faithful got to sing in celebration of a New York Rangers regular-season goal.

Is it “gooooooal”? Or “whooooooa”?

At this rate, we may never know.

With Tuesday’s 2-0 loss to the Edmonton Oilers, the Rangers became the first team in NHL history to start a new season by being shut out in their first three home games. If they fail to score within the first 7:20 of Monday’s contest against the Minnesota Wild at MSG, they’ll surpass the now-defunct Pittsburgh Pirates’ league-record scoring drought of 187:19 to begin a new season on home ice set in 1928, according to NHL Stats. (They played 10-minute overtime periods back then, which is how the Pirates got to that number in less than three full games.)

“I don’t know whether to laugh or cry, honestly,” a flabbergasted Mika Zibanejad said.

That exasperation is understandable considering how the Rangers (2-3) have played, at least in their last two contests.

They lost 1-0 to the Washington Capitals on Sunday, despite outshooting their opponent 35-21, with a 12-6 advantage in high-danger scoring chances, according to Natural Stat Trick. Then came Tuesday, with a 30-22 edge in shots and a lopsided 15-3 difference in high-danger chances.

They believe the process has been there — for good reason — which was reflected in the message coming from the dressing room.

“It’s a unique situation, but let’s not blow this out of proportion,” captain J.T. Miller said. “There’s a lot of good. We’re getting a lot of chances. This is a unique start to the season, in the sense of there have been games where we feel like we’ve really thrown a lot at the other team and we’re not getting rewarded. So I think it’s on us to make sure that the mindset stays the same in here and we don’t go off the grid to find something.

“We need to stay the course. Over time, the results will come.”

There were several close calls Tuesday.

Sam Carrick, of all people, was in the middle of a few. It started when the fourth-line center stole a puck behind the Oilers’ net midway through the first period and found a wide-open Will Cuylle in the slot, but the shot was saved by Stuart Skinner. In the second period, moments before the Rangers surpassed the Florida Panthers’ previous season-opening home-ice scoring drought of 155:17, Carrick’s wrister from the right wing hit the crossbar. And with 2:31 left in regulation, Skinner made his best save of the game, a windmill glove save to deny Carrick’s seventh attempt of the night.

Start spreading the STUUUUUUs 🗞️🚫 #LetsGoOilers pic.twitter.com/i4D2y70hh8

— Edmonton Oilers (@EdmontonOilers) October 15, 2025

“Sam was the best player in the rink tonight,” Miller said. “He was unbelievable.”

Carrick’s linemate Adam Edström continued to impress while creating a few quality looks of his own. But the 24-year-old winger continues to be snakebitten in search of his first goal of the season. Braden Schneider also hit a crossbar in the second period, and Artemi Panarin finished with team highs in shots (five) and attempts (11). Zibanejad was in a position to score multiple times but missed the target on four of his seven attempts.

“You’re dying to give the fans a reason to cheer,” Carrick said. “They support us every night hugely here, and obviously they want to come and see goals. That’s the frustrating part.”

At some point, of course, they’ll need to find the back of the net to prevent the frustration from mounting. Some combination of poor finishing ability, good goaltending and unbalanced puck luck has kept them off the MSG scoreboard, but that can’t last forever. Right?

“I do believe that the offense will come,” coach Mike Sullivan said. “If we weren’t generating scoring chances, it would be a different conversation, but we believe we are based on everything we’re watching and tracking. It’s not sustainable that the puck’s not going to go in the net if we continue to generate the type of looks that we generated. If we combine our stinginess defensively and our willingness to do the little things that make us harder to play against, and we continue to generate the looks that we have, we believe that this group will pull itself out of it.”

The good news is the Rangers combined for 10 goals in their first two away games and will hit the road for their next two, starting Thursday at the Toronto Maple Leafs and followed by a Saturday matchup at the Montreal Canadiens.

Inside the Miller-McDavid matchup

The Oilers have given the Rangers fits in recent years. In fact, it was a 6-2 defeat in Edmonton on Nov. 23 last season that served as the final straw before team president Chris Drury sent a league-wide memo informing all opposing general managers he was open for business and set off a series of trades.

He recognized the Rangers couldn’t keep pace with the league’s fastest and most skilled outfits, which prompted the decision to make big changes.

“I just think it’s the evolution of the game,” Sullivan said before Tuesday’s game. “It’s the way the game is being played. Speed can be a real competitive advantage, and speed can manifest itself in different ways. There’s physical foot speed. There’s team speed — your ability to change the point of attack and move the puck, and being connected on breakouts. Things of that nature help your team speed. And then there’s mind speed, or intellectual speed — your ability to process the game quickly. Windows of opportunity open and close, so you can anticipate on both sides of the puck to try and take advantage. So, speed in all of its forms, for me, is a real competitive advantage in today’s game.”

If Tuesday was any indication, New York is making considerable progress.

Oilers forward Trent Frederic caught defenseman Urho Vaakanainen sleeping at the blue line for a partial breakaway and go-ahead goal at the 10:22 mark of the second period, which led to Vaakanainen’s taking only three shifts across 1:42 of ice time in the final period. But that was Edmonton’s only tally at even strength.

The Oilers were smothered outside of a few fleeting chances while Connor McDavid was on ice, but even the best player in the world was mostly held in check. Sullivan decided to match him up with Miller, who has a long history of playing against McDavid from his days with the Pacific Division rival Vancouver Canucks.

“We’ve played against each other a lot of shifts,” Miller said. “It’s a lot. I love it. When I was young in the league, I really respected the guys on this (Rangers) team (who took the difficult) responsibilities against other people’s top line. So it’s a great opportunity for me. He’s a hell of a competitor. It’s hard to do it every shift. He’s gonna get something sometimes, but you just try not to make it too big of a grade-A (scoring chance). I thought, for the most part, we defended the middle against him pretty well tonight.”

With the benefit of last change on home ice, Sullivan sent Miller over the boards nearly every time he saw No. 97; Miller played 11:16 against the Oilers captain. McDavid’s line, which started with Leon Draisaitl and Andrew Mangiapane but later shifted, had the edge in shots (7-3), attempts (14-7), scoring chances (5-4) and high-dangers (2-1). But the most important stat was zero, as in points registered at five-on-five. (McDavid did have an assist on an empty-netter with just over a minute to play.)

“I think J.T. is hard to play against,” Sullivan said. “I think he has a lot of detail in his game. He’s strong, he’s good positionally, he has good awareness, and so that was part of the reason we liked that matchup. … I thought his line did a real good job against them.

“McDavid is an elite player, and he’s not an easy guy to contain, especially when he was playing with Draisaitl. When the two of them were on the same line, that’s as powerful a line as there is in the league, and I thought those guys did a real good job, just as far as limiting the offense that they generated. I think the fact that their coach (Kris Knoblauch) split them up a little bit might be an indication of how well they did. I thought J.T. had a strong game once again.”

Knoblauch concurred, saying: “We felt that they had more of the momentum. They had better scoring chances. We just wanted to disrupt their rhythm. A lot of that had to do with line matchups — we switched up our lines to get away from their line matchups.”