{"id":466249,"date":"2025-12-23T08:51:17","date_gmt":"2025-12-23T08:51:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/466249\/"},"modified":"2025-12-23T08:51:17","modified_gmt":"2025-12-23T08:51:17","slug":"mike-sullivans-rangers-gripes-echo-vincent-trochecks-blunt-critique","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/466249\/","title":{"rendered":"Mike Sullivan’s Rangers gripes echo Vincent Trocheck’s blunt critique"},"content":{"rendered":"

Vincent Trocheck called it an issue of pride, and it was hard for Rangers coach Mike Sullivan to disagree.<\/p>\n

Sullivan didn\u2019t dispute Trocheck\u2019s assessment following Sunday\u2019s 2-1 loss in Nashville<\/a>, dropping the team to 0-6-1 this season in the second game of a back-to-back.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, it\u2019s disappointing because we had a couple of really high-character wins the last couple of games and these guys have worked extremely hard,\u201d Sullivan said after the middling Rangers fell to 18-16-4 overall entering Tuesday\u2019s road game against the Capitals. \u201cWe knew this was gonna be a tough game going into it, but it doesn\u2019t make any excuses for the lack of execution.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think there\u2019s gonna be points in the schedule where every team\u2019s gonna play against the schedule a little bit. This was gonna be one of them for us. \u2026 I just didn\u2019t [think] we were sharp from the drop of the puck. I shouldn\u2019t say that. I thought the first few shifts we had, I thought we had a pretty decent start, but it didn\u2019t last long.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sullivan\u2019s primary gripe was a lack of execution and crispness by his team, but he also thought it was a wasted \u201copportunity for some guys with a depleted lineup,\u201d without injured captain J.T. Miller <\/a>and ill forwards Matt Rempe and Gabe Perreault. The late scratches of the latter two forced the Rangers to dress 11 forwards and seven defensemen.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that\u2019s some of the silver lining in something like this, and of course we don\u2019t want to play with a depleted lineup, but when you do, it provides opportunities for guys to play some more significant minutes and a more prominent role,\u201d Sullivan said. \u201cAnd it provides others that are in the lineup to elevate their games to try to help us have success.<\/p>\n

\"MikeMike Sullivan reacts on the bench in the third period at Madison Square Garden in New York, October 23, 2025. JASON SZENES\/ NY POST<\/p>\n

\u201cBut we just didn\u2019t execute. We didn\u2019t go tape to tape. We were late everywhere. When you have these nights, I think you gotta recognize how to manage the game. You can\u2019t beat yourself. You gotta manage the puck. You gotta make sure you force them to play goal line to goal line. You can\u2019t give them easy offense. We gave them easy offense. We didn\u2019t manage the puck. We didn\u2019t make any plays. We made high-risk plays and turned into a track meet. It\u2019s not a recipe for success. \u2026 It\u2019s hard to play that way. You\u2019re chasing the game.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Sullivan noted, part of the disappointment was that the Blueshirts had shown some mettle in winning their previous two games, an overtime win last week in St. Louis and a shootout decision over the Flyers on Saturday night at MSG.<\/p>\n

\u201cDefinitely, when you\u2019re on a back-to-back you want to make sure you\u2019re coming out and making sure that you\u2019re on top of them early. And I thought we had a good start,\u201d defenseman Braden Schneider said. \u201cWe just lost it a little. And they ended up coming back at us in the second half [of the game], for sure.<\/p>\n

\"PhiladelphiaPhiladelphia Flyers goaltender Samuel Ersson (33) reacts after New York Rangers center Vincent Trocheck (16) scores a goal in a shootout at Madison Square Garden, Saturday, Dec. 20, 2025, in New York, NY. Corey Sipkin for the NY POST<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we just weren\u2019t executing at the level that we wanted to. I think we had our opportunities, and we either didn\u2019t bear down or we could have done a better job, especially coming out of our zone and things like that. I think we just made it a little harder than we needed it to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked why he believed the Rangers showed a lack of pride in the game, Trocheck bluntly added that they \u201clooked f\u2013king dead.\u201d The Predators, it should be noted, also played the previous night in a win over the Maple Leafs.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe gotta take advantage of these types of nights when we don\u2019t have it,\u201d Mika Zibanejad added. \u201cIt\u2019s been a lot this season when we win when we have our \u2018A\u2019 game, and it\u2019s working for us.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut we have to find a way to win games when we\u2019re not at our best, either, especially when our goalies are giving us a chance to do so. We have to find a way to do it. That\u2019s the thing that kind of stands out.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Vincent Trocheck called it an issue of pride, and it was hard for Rangers coach Mike Sullivan to…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":466250,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[66396,1302,293,13726,62,67,132,68,80412],"class_list":{"0":"post-466249","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-mike-sullivan-nhl","9":"tag-new-york-rangers","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-ny-sports-minute","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\/115768033007161156","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466249","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=466249"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466249\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/466250"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=466249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=466249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=466249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}