MIAMI \u2014 As much as Adam Fox wants the focus to be on what\u2019s ahead, it was seemingly impossible to not address what now seems to be in the rear-view mirror.<\/p>\n
Speaking with reporters on Thursday for the first time since word came out that he was set to be a stunning omission for the United States men\u2019s Olympic hockey team \u2014 Seth Jones and Noah Hanifin were officially added on Friday among players who weren\u2019t on the 4 Nations roster last year \u2014 the 27-year-old New York Rangers defenseman handled a tough situation with class.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously, it\u2019s not what you want to hear, but it is what it is,\u201d Fox said of the call from Team USA GM Bill Guerin. \u201cI don\u2019t think you have any expectation, I would say, but I thought my play this year was worthy of it and my track record as well. But, it\u2019s out of my hands at a certain point. That\u2019s their decision, and I guess that\u2019s how it goes.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 2021 Norris Trophy winner as the National Hockey League\u2019s best defenseman and a long-time representative for Team USA both at the junior and senior levels \u2014 he won a gold medal at the 2017 World Junior Championships and silver at last year\u2019s 4 Nations Face-Off \u2014 was said by some to have hurt his case to play in Milan by his showing at the latter event, while others have suggested he\u2019s not quite been the same since a knee-on-knee hit in the 2024 postseason.<\/p>\n
Regardless, the Jericho, N.Y. native is the third-highest scoring defenseman regardless of country since his entry into the league in 2019-20, behind only Cale Makar and Quinn Hughes, and has produced at a point-per-game pace this year (four goals and 24 assists in 28 games in a campaign also sidetracked by injury) after coming off a 61-point season in 2024-25.<\/p>\n
Making things more complicated, Rangers head coach Mike Sullivan will once again lead Team USA, who are taking teammates Vincent Trocheck and J.T. Miller, but not Fox, leading to a potentially awkward situation moving forward.<\/p>\n
\u201cAdam and I have had a number of conversations around this,\u201d Sullivan told reporters on Thursday after the team\u2019s Winter Classic practice.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd, I will keep that conversation between Adam and I. What I will tell you is that these teams that are being picked are the best of the best, and there\u2019s so many good players.\u00a0 There are very, very difficult decisions that have to be made. It is a collaborative effort on everybody\u2019s part, and that\u2019s just the reality of these circumstances. We\u2019ll do our very best to be as professional and straightforward as we can be with everyone that\u2019s involved, but Foxy and I have had a number of conversations, and I\u2019ll keep those between us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fox, to his credit, echoed similar sentiments, saying that he would also elect to keep those conversations private.<\/p>\n
In the meantime, his focus remains moving forward, not only on the Winter Classic, but the remainder of a season in which the Rangers have once again surprisingly floundered, once again finding themselves out of a playoff position at the halfway point of the year. But, for those thinking that an unexpected Olympic snub might be a motivator for the team\u2019s top defenseman, think again.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think I\u2019m pretty self-motivated in general,\u201d he said. \u201cMy focus all year has been on helping the Rangers, and I think that\u2019s where my head is at right now as well.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MIAMI \u2014 As much as Adam Fox wants the focus to be on what\u2019s ahead, it was seemingly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":387084,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5111],"tags":[5,3328,35,5190,5193,4,36,43,5366],"class_list":{"0":"post-387083","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-rangers","8":"tag-hockey","9":"tag-new-york","10":"tag-new-york-rangers","11":"tag-newyork","12":"tag-newyorkrangers","13":"tag-nhl","14":"tag-rangers","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-top-stories-trt"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/115827211541587054","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387083","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=387083"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387083\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/387084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=387083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=387083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=387083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}