Following Successful 2011-12 Campaign, Brutal Early-Season Schedule Awaits Rangers

NEW YORK (WFAN) - Following the Rangers' highly successful -- yet highly disappointing -- 2011-12 campaign, the Blueshirts will have their work cut out for them at the start of the 2012-2013 season.

It won't be easy by any stretch of the imagination.

New York will kick off the season against the Los Angeles Kings, the reigning Stanley Cup Champions, in southern California on October 12th. And if that's not cruel enough, the defending regular-season Eastern Conference Champions will then play the subsequent seven games on the road, spanning the entire month of October.

Among those seven games, the Rangers will square off with the crosstown New Jersey Devils -- who upset them in the Eastern Conference Finals -- the feisty San Jose Sharks, the rival Pittsburgh Penguins and the Ottawa Senators, who New York defeated in a classic seven-game series in the first round of the NHL Playoffs.

The Rangers will return home to Madison Square Garden to face off with the Dallas Stars in the home opener on November 1st.

Rangers fans, are you irked at the NHL schedule-makers for giving the Rangers such a difficult month of October? Sound off with your thoughts and comments below...