It starts tonight at the Garden. It will be held at the Garden. Rangers kick off 2022-23 with more promise heading into a season than they’ve had in seven years — which may not be that long if you’re a fan of certain other teams, but Ranger fans have been spoiled in the last decade-plus. They have the chance to be an elite team that could legitimately compete for the Stanley Cup.
So maybe some of these predictions won’t strike as bold, given the expectations. But we’ll try to raise an eyebrow or two at the very least. These are our bold predictions for this season’s Rangers:
The Rangers’ leading goal scorer will be … Mika Zibanejad
Basically what we’re saying here is Chris Kreider will not post a repeat of last season’s 52-goal breakout. Which is not that controversial — if he hits 30, that’s still better than every year except last year for him! Zibanejad is the Rangers’ goal-scoring engine for a long period, so expect him back to win the team goal crown with a 37 goal season. The power-play one-timer is going to get some work.
This season, the Rangers will be able to count on seven 15-goal scorers.
Even with Kreider’s big year and some gaudy point totals from Artemi Panarin, Adam FoxZibanejad said that the Rangers weren’t a balanced offense with a lot of potential.
