With the New York Rangers taking on the Vegas Golden Knights for the second time this season, the Rangers look to tie up the series at 1-1. The first matchup resulted in a 5-1 win for the Golden Knights on Jan. 18 in Vegas. Tonight, the Rangers play at home and are favored to win even though they haven’t been playing the way they did when the season started. In their last 10 games the Rangers have played, they are 3-5-2 and are also coming off a loss.

The Rangers who are first in their division lost to the San Jose Sharks on Tuesday Jan. 23, who are last in the pacific division. This was a game that many people expected them to win, but they have found themselves in a bit of a slump as of lately.

In the first period, Adam Fox was able to give the Rangers the first lead of the game making the score 1-0. To start the second period, Artemi Panarin would score a quick goal making it 2-0. It wasn’t until the third period that the Rangers would find themselves in a bit of trouble. Nico Sturm and Ryan Carpenter of the Sharks would score two quick goals to tie the game up at 2. At the end of the third period, the game was still tied so overtime would decide this one. About a minute and a half into overtime, Tomas Hertl would score the game winning goal for the Sharks.

It is important for the Rangers to win tonight considering that the Carolina Hurricanes are trailing right behind them in second place. For well over 2 months, the Rangers never faced jeopardy of falling out of first place within their division, but that has started to shift. If the Rangers were to lose against Vegas and Ottawa, they leave the door open for Carolina to tie them for first in the division.

With the NHL All-Star break coming up, two possible wins against Vegas and Ottawa would allow them to regain some stability within the Metro division. It would also put them in better positioning to win their division for the first time in 9 seasons.