For 40 minutes, it looked like a reprieve for the Rangers, the rare night when they could temporarily escape their reality \u2014 the cellar of the Eastern Conference \u2014 of a lost season, encounter some glimmers of hope and snag a rare home win in regulation. <\/p>\n
Even when they blew a two-goal lead, the Blueshirts still started overtime with nearly a full power play.<\/p>\n
But with this edition of the Blueshirts, not even that can go right. They watched as Matvei Michkov scored the winner 2:10 into overtime with a gassed power-play unit stuck on the ice, falling 3-2 to the Flyers on Thursday to spoil the returns of defenseman Adam Fox and goaltender Igor Shesterkin from injuries and the returns of J.T. Miller and Vincent Trocheck from Team USA\u2019s gold medal trip<\/a>. <\/p>\n The resumption of their season following the Olympic break ended with the Blueshirts (22-29-7) opening a four-game homestand on a sour note.<\/p>\n New York Rangers goaltender Igor Shesterkin (31) skates off after allowing a game-winning overtime goal by Philadelphia Flyers right wing Matvei Michkov (39) during overtime on Thursday, February 26, 2026 at Madison Square Garden. Robert Sabo for NY Post<\/p>\n \u201cThey just didn\u2019t have any juice,\u201d Sullivan said of Fox, Mika Zibanejad, J.T. Miller and Vincent Trocheck, who were all on the ice for the entire extra frame.<\/p>\n But until it all fell apart, just about everything went right for the Rangers. The night all started with the returns of Shesterkin and Fox, who both took their spots in the lineup for the first time since Jan. 5. <\/p>\n Trocheck and Miller were honored pregame for their gold medal<\/a>, along with head coach Mike Sullivan (USA head coach), assistant coach David Quinn (USA assistant) and president and general manager Chris Drury (assistant GM) \u2014 who was greeted with nothing but boos<\/a> given the current state of the Rangers team he\u2019s directly responsible for.<\/p>\n Shesterkin, at times, looked like his vintage self. Fox manned his spot on the power play and with the top defensive pairing, though Sullivan said they\u2019re still \u201ccapable of another level.\u201d <\/p>\n For Fox, it marked just his fourth game since Nov. 29, as his brief return from a shoulder injury was followed almost immediately by a stint on long-term injured reserve for a lower-body injury. He felt \u201ca little helpless\u201d just watching as The Letter 2.0 \u2014 when Drury signaled a retool \u2014 dropped and he couldn\u2019t do anything.<\/p>\n \u201c[Fox has] missed a lot of hockey, so it\u2019s gonna take him some time to get into the game speed, the game timing, things of that nature,\u201d Sullivan said. \u201cHe\u2019s missed so much time. I would anticipate Foxy getting better with each game that he plays.\u201d<\/p>\n Igor Shesterkin makes a save during the Rangers\u2019 3-2 overtime loss at the Garden on Feb. 26, 2026. Robert Sabo for New York Post<\/p>\n Even with the Rangers\u2019 stars acclimating, they still took a 2-0 lead behind unlikely contributors. Fourth-line center Sam Carrick flung a puck from the boards that somehow got past Samuel Ersson for the Blueshirts\u2019 first goal \u2014 and his fourth of the season \u2014 midway through the third period. <\/p>\n Alexis Lafreni\u00e8re, in the middle of another disappointing season with his name swirling in trade rumors, scored 1:23 into the second period too.<\/p>\n Shesterkin, until allowing the trio of goals across the final two-plus frames, turned aside shot after shot, including some tricky rebounds. <\/p>\n Three minutes into the second, Carl Grundstrom and Jamie Drysdale had chances that Shesterkin stopped, and another Flyers shot went wide. When Owen Tippett\u2019s shot gave Noah Cates an open lane from the right side, Shesterkin managed to knock the puck away with his glove. <\/p>\n Sam Carrick, who scored a first period goal, gets into a fight with Garnet Hathaway during the first period of the Rangers\u2019 overtime loss to the Flyers at the Garden. Robert Sabo for New York Post<\/p>\n Eventually, Michkov scored his first tally on the power play later in the frame, Trevor Zegras tied it just 39 seconds into the third and Michkov won it with his second after the Blueshirts failed to capitalize with the man-advantage for the third time Thursday.<\/p>\n The Rangers had a chance to push all of their pressing issues aside for another day. <\/p>\n They had a chance to make sure a celebratory night at the Garden ended that way when fans spilled out the exits and onto the streets. <\/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 They had a chance to forget that their roster might look entirely different a week from now when the March 6 trade deadline arrives, to still emerge with a win even as young players \u2014 such as Noah Laba and Brennan Othmann \u2014 received extra chances with the penalty kill because Sullivan wanted \u201cto see what they\u2019re capable of\u201d while using Zibanejad, Miller and Trocheck less in those spots. <\/p>\n That, as much as the Artemi Panarin trade and The Letter 2.0, is a clear sign of a retool.<\/p>\n Instead, by the time overtime ended, their season-long problems had come right back into focus.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For 40 minutes, it looked like a reprieve for the Rangers, the rare night when they could temporarily…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":619321,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[66395,5229,149242,405,403,1302,5226,5225,293,5228,5227,3108,62,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-619320","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-alexis-lafreniere","9":"tag-america","10":"tag-igor-shesterkin","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-city","13":"tag-new-york-rangers","14":"tag-newyork","15":"tag-newyorkcity","16":"tag-nhl","17":"tag-ny","18":"tag-nyc","19":"tag-philadelphia-flyers","20":"tag-sports","21":"tag-united-states","22":"tag-united-states-of-america","23":"tag-unitedstates","24":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","25":"tag-us","26":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116141233538215539","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619320","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=619320"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619320\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/619321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=619320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=619320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=619320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}