The Rangers lost their best player on October 9 and are still second in the Metropolitan Division. Connor McDavid has started the season like it is 1995 and he is Mario Lemieux. Put the two together at Madison Square Garden on Sunday night and Rangers vs Oilers looks like a hard first exam for a 24-year-old goalie named Dylan Garand.
Igor Shesterkin is out for the season with a right knee injury. He jammed his skate into the post scrambling back to his crease in a 3-1 loss at Washington, a week after becoming the first Rangers goalie to score a goal (an empty-netter in the home opener against Tampa Bay). Joonas Korpisalo, signed as the backup, was already on injured reserve. So the job went to Garand, recalled from Hartford, and he has been excellent: 3-1-0 with a 1.15 goals-against average and a .951 save percentage in his early starts, including a 2-0 shutout in Detroit.
New York Rangers
Edmonton Oilers| Date | Sunday, November 1, 2026 |
|---|---|
| Puck drop | 6 p.m. ET (4 p.m. in Edmonton, 11 p.m. UK) |
| Venue | Madison Square Garden, New York |
| Rangers | 6-3-1 as of October 19, second in the Metropolitan Division |
| Oilers | 6-1-1 as of October 18 |
| Rematch | November 9 in Edmonton |
The US switches back to standard time that morning, so the 6 p.m. start is 23:00 UTC.
McDavid's line against Gavrikov and Fox
This is the battle that decides most Oilers games right now. Mike Babcock moved Leon Draisaitl onto McDavid's line during an injury crunch, with Vasily Podkolzin on the right, and it has been absurd. Through eight games McDavid had 23 points (six goals, 17 assists), a point in every game, two five-point nights and a plus-19. His 17 assists tied Lemieux (1995-96) and Wayne Gretzky (1986-87) for the most through a season's first eight games. Draisaitl had 14 points of his own and the trio had combined for 37 in six games together.
The Rangers will want Vladislav Gavrikov and Adam Fox out there as often as Mike Sullivan can manage at home, where he gets the last change. Fox hasn't scored yet this season, but he is still the defenseman who drives the Rangers' play, and pinning McDavid in his own end is probably the best defense there is.
Garand against the Edmonton goaltending
Nobody planned this matchup in September. Edmonton's crease has turned into a rotation of its own: Tristan Jarry started on opening night and made 26 saves in the 6-2 win at Utah, while Devon Levi, acquired from Buffalo in July, made a career-high 39 saves in a 4-1 win over the Kings. Both teams are winning without a true No. 1 in form, which tells you how much the skaters in front are doing.
Garand's numbers won't stay at .951, and the Oilers are the worst team in the league to face if you want to keep them there. The Rangers' front office has been looking at other options, and Jonathan Quick, now the club's director of goaltender development, has been floated as a possible fill-in. For now it is Garand's net.
J.T. Miller and the middle of the ice
The Rangers' captain had the line of the season when Shesterkin went down: "He's a pillar of this team. It stinks." Miller's line with Tye Kartye and Alexis Lafrenière has been the second unit behind Mika Zibanejad's, and Lafrenière has been one of the team's bright spots in October.
Miller's job on Sunday is simple to describe. When Babcock splits McDavid and Draisaitl, as he will at some point, the Rangers need their centers to win the possession battle against whichever one they draw. Pavel Dorofeyev, who arrived from Vegas in the summer, plays on Zibanejad's line, and the Rangers are counting on his scoring.
Two coaches who like structure
Sullivan is in year two in New York after a season in which the Rangers went 34-39-9 and finished bottom of the Metropolitan Division with 77 points. He has kept saying this group can compete, and the early table backs him up.
Babcock was coaxed out of retirement to coach Edmonton after the Oilers went out in six games to Anaheim in the first round last spring, their earliest exit since 2020-21. His Stanley Cup came with Detroit in 2008, and his message this October has been process over results: "We're building our game; we're early in it." He has also said McDavid has done "everything that I've asked," which is a sentence most coaches would happily say about any player scoring three points a night.
New York RangersEdmonton OilersLikely lineups and the pick
Based on recent games, and lines change quickly in October:
- Rangers forwards: Gabe Perreault, Zibanejad, Dorofeyev; Kartye, Miller, Lafrenière; Will Cuylle, Noah Laba, Eeli Tolvanen.
- Rangers defense: Gavrikov and Fox; Marcus Pettersson and Sean Durzi; Alberts Smits and Braden Schneider. Garand in goal.
- Oilers top line: McDavid, Draisaitl, Podkolzin, with Zach Hyman, Kasperi Kapanen and Mathieu Joseph among the forwards and Evan Bouchard on the back end. Jarry or Levi in goal.
I like what the Rangers are doing and the Garden will be loud, but this Rangers vs Oilers game comes down to whether a third-string goalie can handle the best line in hockey for 60 minutes. I'll take Edmonton, 4-2, and I'd happily be proven wrong by Garand.
How to watch Rangers vs Oilers
In New York, Rangers games normally air on MSG Network unless a national broadcaster has the rights. Oilers fans in western Canada should check Sportsnet, and everyone else should check local listings. If you can't find it, DAMITV streams it free in HD with no signup on our NHL streams page. The Garden's other tenants are on the road that weekend, at Philadelphia on Friday (our 76ers vs Knicks preview has the details), and the Knicks live stream page carries every game. ESPN's report on Shesterkin's injury has the full background on the Rangers' goalie situation.
