{"id":435447,"date":"2025-12-09T11:15:15","date_gmt":"2025-12-09T11:15:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/435447\/"},"modified":"2025-12-09T11:15:15","modified_gmt":"2025-12-09T11:15:15","slug":"rangers-emerge-from-tough-stretch-with-renewed-optimism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/435447\/","title":{"rendered":"Rangers emerge from tough stretch with renewed optimism"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Rangers have dropped two consecutive overtime games on home ice, including squandering a one-goal lead in the final minute of regulation Sunday night against Vegas.<\/p>\n

In between lamenting a poor start and some unfavorable calls and non-calls<\/a>, the Blueshirts mostly chose to view their latest loss as part of a four-game point streak against tough opponents, also featuring a win over Dallas at the Garden, one at Ottawa and Saturday\u2019s OT defeat against Colorado.<\/p>\n

The Avalanche, Golden Knights and Stars, after all, sported the top three records in the Western Conference entering Monday\u2019s league action.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, I\u2019m disappointed for the players, for the guys, because I thought we competed hard,\u201d Rangers coach Mike Sullivan said Sunday night. \u201cI thought we\u2019ve had a pretty hard week against some of the best teams in the league and these guys are competing extremely hard, and I think we\u2019ve put a game on the ice that I think the guys should be proud of.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Rangers, who will next play Wednesday night in Chicago, came out sluggishly in Sunday\u2019s first period after also falling in OT the previous day to the Avs. But they dominated play in the second period with 17 shots on goal, scoring twice for the 2-1 lead they carried until the final minute of the third<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re starting to do a lot of the right things more on a consistent basis, especially against the top teams in the league,\u201d J.T. Miller said. \u201cWe looked at this week as a really good challenge. Dallas, Ottawa and these two [games], eight points were up for grabs, and we got six. I think we\u2019ll take that any day of the week.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we\u2019re getting rewarded by getting team points. We\u2019re hanging in there. It\u2019s a hard part of the schedule, every team goes through it, and we\u2019re trying to grind. I love that we\u2019re playing some of the top teams in the league right now. It\u2019s an unreal challenge for our group to kind of see where we\u2019re at.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"J.T.J.T. Miller #8 of the New York Rangers skates against the Vegas Golden Knights. Getty Images<\/p>\n

The Rangers are 15-12-4 overall, but that now includes a 5-1-2 stretch<\/a> in their past eight after opening the season with just 10 wins in their first 23 (10-11-2), including none (0-6-1) over the first seven at MSG.<\/p>\n

They also have played the last four games without All-Star defenseman Adam Fox, who is on long-term injured reserve<\/a> with an upper-body injury.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the way we\u2019re playing is positive, and I think for the most part we\u2019re pretty happy with it,\u201d Vincent Trocheck said. \u201cObviously, losing Foxy is huge, he\u2019s a big catalyst for our team, so not having him hurts. But I think our back end has really stepped up\u2026It\u2019s gonna take everybody to fill those shoes. But the way we\u2019re playing right now, I feel like it\u2019s a step in the right direction.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tRead the expert take on the Blueshirts\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSign up for Inside the Rangers, a weekly Sports+ exclusive.\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\tThank you\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Sullivan, who won two Stanley Cup titles with the Penguins, thinks so, too.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve had this conversation with the players a lot; when you leave the rink, throw the score out, throw all the numbers out, all the analytics, whatever you want to call them,\u201d Sullivan said. \u201cPlayers know. When you get in the car on the ride home, you get a feeling about the experience you just went through. And that feeling doesn\u2019t lie. So I think players know, they know when they play well, they know when they compete hard, they know when they\u2019ve left it out there. And I think they have that feeling tonight.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we\u2019re moving towards the identity that we\u2019re trying to build and the game that we want to play. And we\u2019ve just gotta continue to stay hungry and continue to work at it. I think once again, when you play some of the better teams in the league like we have most recently, and the guys perform the way they have, I think it provides a lot of evidence. And I think that reinforces belief in what we\u2019re doing and how we\u2019re going about it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Rangers have dropped two consecutive overtime games on home ice, including squandering a one-goal lead in the…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":435448,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[80411,66396,1302,293,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-435447","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-mike-sullivan-nhl","10":"tag-new-york-rangers","11":"tag-nhl","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115689326599534815","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435447","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=435447"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435447\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/435448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=435447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=435447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=435447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}