The Rangers history since the start of the shot-location era (2007-08) is pretty much split in thirds in terms of 5v5 on-ice play. Results-wise, only about 4 teams were widely agreed upon as actually good, and that ranged from October 2010 to June 2014. The league-average teams were a mix of Renney and Vigneault years, while the first two years of David Quinn resulted in objectively bad results (albeit, they were expected). Yet despite the results this year, the NY Rangers trends show they might be better than their record.
While expectations for the Rangers ranged from the team-speak of playoffs being “the goal,” to fans being optimistic or pessimistic, thus far the best surprise the team has delivered has been playing very well given the seemingly non-stop run of off-ice distractions and injuries.