{"id":163072,"date":"2025-08-21T06:08:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-21T06:08:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/163072\/"},"modified":"2025-08-21T06:08:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-21T06:08:08","slug":"zibanejad-embraces-move-to-wing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/163072\/","title":{"rendered":"Zibanejad Embraces Move to Wing"},"content":{"rendered":"

For a team in transition \u2014 including a new head coach in Mike Sullivan and the trade of longtime<\/a> fan-favorite Chris Kreider<\/strong><\/a> \u2014 the New York Rangers are also looking to determine what position former 90-point forward Mika Zibanejad<\/strong><\/a> will play this upcoming season.<\/p>\n

NHL.com\u2019s Dan Rosen<\/a> reports that Zibanejad will likely start training camp as a right wing alongside center J.T. Miller<\/strong><\/a>. As Rosen outlines, Zibanejad and Sullivan met in the player\u2019s native Sweden, where Zibanejad expressed both his developing chemistry with Miller and his desire to continue playing alongside him.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs part of that conversation, one of the things he expressed to me is even though he lined up on the wing on the face-offs, he felt they were interchangeable in the sense that they could read off each other,\u201d Sullivan said.<\/p>\n

Sullivan added that both players are comfortable handling faceoffs regardless of their position on the ice and playing down low in the defensive zone. To that point, Zibanejad won faceoffs last season at a 52 percent clip, one of the highest marks of his career. However, that percentage pales in comparison to Miller\u2019s 54.3 percent career win rate, which included a 57.6 percent mark last year. Both players have also established themselves as effective penalty killers with the ability to score shorthanded goals.<\/p>\n

And while Sullivan acknowledged a desire for Zibanejad and Miller to continue building on their pre-existing chemistry, he also noted that each centering their own line, along with Vincent Trocheck<\/strong><\/a>, could create a solid foundation for the top three lines.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose are three pretty high-quality centermen,\u201d Sullivan said. \u201cI think it\u2019s going to play itself out, but certainly the conversations I\u2019ve had with Mika to this point I would envision us exploring keeping Mika with J.T.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zibanejad played in all 82 games last season, recording his fifth consecutive 20-goal campaign. However, his 62 points were his lowest total since the injury-shortened 2020-21 season. The 32-year-old also produced a -22 rating (the second lowest of his career), and his average ice time of 18:46 per game was his lowest since the 2017-18 season.<\/p>\n

Zibanejad has spent nine seasons in the Big Apple and currently ranks eighth all-time in franchise history in goals (250) and points (589). He\u2019s also tied for sixth in franchise history with 11 shorthanded goals and tied for second with seven hat tricks.<\/p>\n

However, the forward isn\u2019t just a franchise fixture. He continues to produce and is only two seasons removed from a 39-goal, 91-point campaign. A return to that form, whether at center or on the wing, would go a long way toward the franchise\u2019s goal of returning to contention.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For a team in transition \u2014 including a new head coach in Mike Sullivan and the trade of…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":163073,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[80411,49263,1302,293,62,67,132,68,80412],"class_list":{"0":"post-163072","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-j-t-miller","9":"tag-mika-zibanejad","10":"tag-new-york-rangers","11":"tag-nhl","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-us","16":"tag-vincent-trocheck"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115065265251565573","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=163072"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163072\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/163073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=163072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=163072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=163072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}