The Rangers are back — and just in time for playoff push
I’d never quite seen anything like the 19-game stretch bridging November and December in which the Rangers won four and lost 15 in regulation.
And I’m not sure I’ve seen anything like this dramatic turnaround that began the first week of 2025 in which the Blueshirts have gone 7-1-3 to wedge their way smack dab into the playoff picture.
This is the sentence that I never believed I would write this season:
They’re back, baby!
The Blueshirts danced and slugged
while tampering with the Senators’ playoff dreams to the tune of 5-0 at the Garden on Tuesday to move within two points of Ottawa, Boston and Montreal, all tied for the East’s two wild-card spots.
The entire season — with or without J.T. Miller — lays ahead of them. Suddenly — and this surely qualifies as suddenly — the possibilities seem endless.
The Boomerang Season.
This was a full 60-minute display in which Igor Shesterkin extended his shutout streak to 164:04 with his second consecutive whitewash. The Rangers pushed the pace. They controlled possession for shifts at a time below the hash marks. They sent bodies and pucks to the net at one end and crashed the Ottawa net at the other end.
“We had a great game tonight, defensively one of our best games of the season,” said Shesterkin, pristine in his movements and rebound control for the second straight night following his 1-0 shootout victory over the Jackets here on Saturday. “Offensively, too.”
Shesterkin joined a brouhaha behind the net, throwing a gloved hand followed by a blocker at Brady Tkachuk after the Senators captain banged the goaltender in his crease at 7:09 of the third, 3:25 after Matt Rempe went up top on his backhand to extend the Blueshirts’ lead to 3-0.
Shesterkin missed a week on IR when he was banged into by Sam Bennett — with help from Ryan Lindgren — in his crease in the third period of the Blueshirts’ Dec. 30 defeat in Florida during which the club’s compete level ratcheted up for the first time in months.
The netminder joined the fray after all five Rangers swarmed to the crease to defend Shesterkin. It is possible that the time on IR helped No. 31 to reset after his game had intermittently begun to break down behind a broken and porous defense.
“Maybe yes, maybe not,” Shesterkin said about the enforced break. “I just focused on my things, refreshed my brain, worked a little bit with our goalie coach [Jeff Malcolm] just doing our things.”
Rempe was doing his things in this one, even getting seven — seven! — third-period shifts and a total ice time of 9:12 in which he had twice as many shots — four — as hits. He was hard on the puck. He was, again, disciplined.
There is obviously much more to this dramatic turnaround than No. 73, who was serving his eight-game suspension when the Rangers began to reverse their fortunes,
but the fact is that the Blueshirts are 7-2-3 with Rempe in the lineup this season and are 21-4-4 with him over the past two regular seasons, 29-7-4 including the playoffs.
The rising tide has elevated all boats. Mika Zibanejad went straight up against the Senators top line that featured Tkachuk, Drake Batherson and a myriad of wingers, and was dominant. The Zibanejad-Reilly Smith-Will Cuylle combination registered a 72.98 xGF ratio. The Rempe-Sam Carrick-Adam Edstrom unit chipped in with a 70.06 xGF while the Alexis Lafreniere-Vincent Trocheck-Artemi Panarin trio was in at 63.61.
Sometimes game analytics can be deceiving. The same for xGF. On this night, though, the numbers jibed with the eye test. This was domination from one end of the ice to the other with the Blueshirts owning a 17-8 advantage in scoring chances and 7-4 in high-danger opportunities.
This was the first time this season the Rangers limited scoring chances to a single digit. That is entirely reflective of the club’s defensive mindset during the calendar year 2025.
You can hate that
GM Chris Drury traded Kaapo Kakko. You can hate the way the organization handled/developed the Finn after his second-overall selection in 2019. But you cannot hate the deal with Seattle in which Drury and the Blueshirts acquired Will Borgen, an old-school top-four righty who has brought it at both ends and has solidified the second pair with K’Andre Miller.
“I love the way he plays in front of me,” Shesterkin said of Borgen, a pending free agent whose price keeps going up. “He plays very well; smart, strong guy.
“Huge player for us.”
Miller has played his best hockey at both ends after head coach Peter Laviolette made the studied decision not to bench No. 79 following his late third-period boo-boo against Dallas allowed the Stars to tie the game they would then win in overtime.
Since that turnover settled in the back of the Blueshirts net, No. 79 has been on for only three goals against (four, for, Moses Malone) over the ensuing seven contests.
“I think since we’ve come back from the [Christmas] break, there’s a new identity coming to the rink, a new feel, a new life,” Miller said. “Guys are happy and obviously we were determined to get out of that hole.”
November-December.
Now this.
The Rangers are back, baby.
The Rangers are back.
