tRY IT NOW <\/a><\/p>\nA lifted roster freeze awaits when the season resumes Feb. 26, and a trade deadline of March 6 that will likely shake things up once again in New York is not too far behind.<\/p>\n
However, the players aren\u2019t looking that far ahead. What they needed in the short term was a break, and it was welcomed for both mental and physical rest.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, it was definitely good,\u201d Will Cuylle, who spent a portion of the break at home in Toronto, told The Post on Tuesday following the first team practice of non-Olympians since the start of the break. \u201cI think in any long season, it\u2019s good to have a break. It can be hard on your body. Eighty-two games is a lot of games. So you just try to reset and come back fresh.\u201d<\/p>\n
To Brennan Othmann, who split time between Florida and home in Ontario, the break provides the Rangers an opportunity to treat the remaining 25 games as a new season.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s just been an up-and-down year for everybody,\u201d Othmann told The Post. \u201cAt the start of the year, I don\u2019t think anyone really figured we would be in this position, but I think it\u2019s good just to kind of get away and reset and not worry about where we were at and everything. It\u2019s almost like a fresh season right now and hopefully we can turn all these negatives, you want to call it, and turn them into positives after this little break.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s good you get that break. Even if it\u2019s for five days, it\u2019s nice to get away,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Heading into the shutdown, the Rangers tallied just three wins in their prior 18 games (3-13-2) and sank to the bottom of the Eastern Conference at 22-29-6.<\/p>\n
![\"Brennan](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/29c839193fd70cb1f28f1d14ec4c8960.jpeg\"\/)
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Brennan Othmann said it was \u201cnice to get away\u201d during the Rangers\u2019 Olympic break. Charles LeClaire-Imagn Images<\/p>\n
It all ended in a 2-0 home loss to the Hurricanes, which marked their ninth shutout loss of the season and seventh on the Madison Square Garden ice.<\/p>\n
On top of that, the Rangers also dealt leading scorer Artemi Panarin to the Kings two days ahead of the roster freeze in exchange for forward Liam Greentree (a 2024 first-round pick) and a conditional third-round pick.<\/p>\n
The poor play came down to what Cuylle attributed to \u201ca lot of things.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Will](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/82099e34e07c37f7c149d79fe45b488f.jpeg\"\/)
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Will Cuylle said it was nice to see Adam Fox and Igor Shesterkin back on the ice for the Rangers. NHLI via Getty Images<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like execution can be better, speed, playing with more passion, I feel like,\u201d he added. \u201cYou know, we\u2019ll see what happens. I feel like the break should help bring some of that back.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Rangers already have two early positives coming out of their first practice in Tarrytown.<\/p>\n
Adam Fox and Igor Shesterkin, who both suffered lower-body injuries during a 3-2 overtime loss to Utah on Jan. 5, were on the ice and in full-contact jerseys during what Cuylle described as a \u201cgood\u201d and \u201ccompetitive\u201d first skate.<\/p>\n
Outside of coach Mike Sullivan, Mika Zibanejad, Vincent Trocheck and J.T. Miller being in Milan, Adam Edstrom wasn\u2019t in attendance due to personal reasons.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s nice to see some faces you haven\u2019t seen in a while\u2026 It\u2019s good group camaraderie seeing those guys out there on the ice,\u201d Othmann said. \u201cThey\u2019re important players for our team and we\u2019re happy that they\u2019re healthy and happy that we\u2019re all back together.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Rangers resume the season against the Flyers to kick off a four-game homestand.<\/p>\n
Brett Berard and Brendan Brisson were recalled from Hartford ahead of Tuesday\u2019s practice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An image collage containing 2 images, Image 1 shows Brennan Othmann said it was Some might see the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":427142,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5108],"tags":[1503,3039,3644,5180,9204,6188,6857,897,230,5179,5,2273,2685,160,4,33,3042,3092],"class_list":["post-461924","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-columbus-blue-jackets","tag-adam-fox","tag-artemi-panarin","tag-blue-jackets","tag-bluejackets","tag-brendan-brisson","tag-brennan-othmann","tag-brett-berard","tag-columbus","tag-columbus-blue-jackets","tag-columbusbluejackets","tag-hockey","tag-igor-shesterkin","tag-j-t-miller","tag-mika-zibanejad","tag-nhl","tag-the-rangers","tag-vincent-trocheck","tag-will-cuylle"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116091441547885051","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461924","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=461924"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461924\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/427142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=461924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=461924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=461924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"An](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/2f8b04f926454231aaa8cea7146fb4a7.jpeg\"\/)
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