{"id":450299,"date":"2025-12-16T05:49:20","date_gmt":"2025-12-16T05:49:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/450299\/"},"modified":"2025-12-16T05:49:20","modified_gmt":"2025-12-16T05:49:20","slug":"rangers-bench-mika-zibanejad-after-missed-team-meeting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/450299\/","title":{"rendered":"Rangers bench Mika Zibanejad after missed team meeting"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Chris Kreider and Mika Zibanejad reunion on the Madison Square Garden ice will have to wait.<\/p>\n

Zibanejad was held out of the Rangers\u2019 4-1 loss to the Ducks on Monday night because he missed a team meeting in the morning, Rangers head coach Mike Sullivan revealed after the team skated in Tarrytown.<\/p>\n

\u201cMika and I had a conversation about it,\u201d Sullivan said. \u201cThere are logistical challenges this city presents sometimes, but having said that, I think Mika understands the importance of the rules that we all expect of one another. This is something that, I think, from his standpoint, obviously, he feels terribly. The one thing about Mika is he\u2019s an honest person. He\u2019s a great human being. He takes responsibility for it. It\u2019s certainly not something that we would like to happen.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut having said that, we believe strongly in the process that we have in place. The process that we have, I think, is important for everyone to understand what the expectations are. Mika understands that as a leader of the team.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"MikaMika Zibanejad will not play in the Ducks-Rangers matchup on Dec. 15, 2025. AP<\/p>\n

Coincidentally falling on the same day as Kreider\u2019s first game against his former team since he was traded to Anaheim this past offseason<\/a>, the ex-Blueshirt won\u2019t get to square off against his best friend and the best man in his wedding.<\/p>\n

As a result, the Rangers will be without one of their top forwards as they take on the No. 2 team in the Pacific Division.<\/p>\n

Zibanejad has appeared in all 33 games to date, scoring a team-leading 11 goals and dishing 14 assists. Since appearing in all 56 games of the truncated 2020-21 campaign, the Swede missed only two games in each of the following four seasons.<\/p>\n

Without Zibanejad, the Rangers activated Matt Rempe off long-term injured reserve and slotted him back into the lineup for the first time since he suffered a hand injury on Oct. 23. He returned to his usual post on the right wing of the fourth line next to Sam Carrick and Taylor Raddysh.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Jaroslav Chmelar was a healthy scratch Monday night against the Ducks, after the Czech rookie appeared in the previous three games. Additionally, defenseman Scott Morrow watched from the press box for a second straight game.<\/p>\n

Through his first five NHL games, Chmelar is a minus-one with zero points and three shots on goal.<\/p>\n

Igor Shesterkin stopped 22 of the 25 shots he faced in his 10th loss of the season.<\/p>\n

The Rangers are in the midst of their sixth back-to-back of the season, beginning with the Ducks on Monday and ending with the Canucks on Tuesday. Goalie Jonathan Quick will presumably face Vancouver.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Chris Kreider and Mika Zibanejad reunion on the Madison Square Garden ice will have to wait. Zibanejad…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":450300,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,49263,405,403,1302,5226,5225,293,5228,5227,62,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-450299","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-mika-zibanejad","10":"tag-new-york","11":"tag-new-york-city","12":"tag-new-york-rangers","13":"tag-newyork","14":"tag-newyorkcity","15":"tag-nhl","16":"tag-ny","17":"tag-nyc","18":"tag-sports","19":"tag-united-states","20":"tag-united-states-of-america","21":"tag-unitedstates","22":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","23":"tag-us","24":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115727682053074269","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450299","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=450299"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450299\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/450300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=450299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=450299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=450299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}