A Rangers win does not have much significance right now, if any at all. It is more for team morale than anything else.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sitting in second-to-last place in the NHL entering Saturday\u2019s matinee, the Blueshirts got a little boost after capturing just their seventh victory at Madison Square Garden this season, with a 3-2 shootout win over the Penguins.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It was Vincent Trocheck who scored the lone goal in the skills competition, which snapped a five-game losing streak for the Rangers. Fittingly, Trocheck is the No. 1 Ranger on trade watch heading into Friday\u2019s deadline.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m happy for them that we were able to get a win at home,\u201d head coach Mike Sullivan said after his team rallied from a 2-0 deficit to improve to 7-15-5 at the Garden. \u201cGive these guys something to feel good about, and give us something to build on. I thought the response was great. The biggest thing I liked about it was just our competitive fire.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
For the Rangers, this week is no different than any of the past six since president and general manager Chris Drury announced the club\u2019s retooling plans \u2014 minus the 20-day Olympic break, of course.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sullivan acknowledged after practice on Friday that he has a sense of how hard it\u2019s been for his players, especially those who have been here through both the successes and the failures.\u00a0<\/p>\n
New York Rangers center Vincent Trocheck scores the game-winning goal past Pittsburgh Penguins goaltender Stuart Skinner in a shootout at Madison Square Garden on February 28, 2026. JASON SZENES FOR THE NEW YORK POST<\/p>\n
With two games left before the deadline and 23 contests remaining on the schedule, however, the Rangers can still play for pride.\u00a0<\/p>\n
They can prioritize rookies Gabe Perreault, Noah Laba, Matthew Robertson and Scott Morrow.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s time for young players to develop pretty well right now,\u201d said goalie Igor Shesterkin, who made five key saves in overtime on the way to finishing with 31 on the day.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Through nearly 25 minutes of play on Saturday, the Rangers had mustered only four shots on goal.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Rangers center Mika Zibanejad is all smiles after he scores a goal in the second period at Madison Square Garden. JASON SZENES FOR THE NEW YORK POST<\/p>\n
The MSG crowd sarcastically clapped as Mika Zibanejad recorded shot No. 4 in the second period.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Blueshirts were already in a two-goal hole, which could\u2019ve been three if not for Sullivan\u2019s successful goalie interference challenge on Bryan Rust\u2019s power-play goal in the first period.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Zibanejad then gave the Rangers a lifeline with a power-play goal of his own halfway through the middle frame.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The home team finally found its pushback and played a much more competitive second and third period. That led to Taylor Raddysh knocking in a Vladislav Gavrikov feed to tie it up just under three minutes into the third.\u00a0<\/p>\n
With the victory, the Rangers enter what is sure to be a trying week with some positivity. No one has to tell them what to expect. They\u2019ve been living it for longer than most other teams.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Rangers goaltender Igor Shesterkin defends the net in the second period. JASON SZENES FOR THE NEW YORK POST<\/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
\u201cWe\u2019ve already addressed the circumstance that we\u2019re in,\u201d Sullivan said of his pre-trade deadline conversations with the team on Friday. \u201cI don\u2019t know that this week changes anything, based on what we\u2019ve been dealing with the last three or four weeks. We\u2019ve had conversations with the team and individuals around it because it\u2019s our job to try to help them navigate through their own respective circumstances to try to help them be the best versions of themselves. So we\u2019ve had some conversations around it. The trade deadline is never an easy time for players. That\u2019s just been my experience, both as a player, but also coaching a number of teams over the years. This week is always \u2014 there\u2019s a level of uncertainty that players have to deal with. It\u2019s just the reality of the business part of what we all sign up for.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody understands it, but I don\u2019t think it makes it any easier. I think these guys are all human beings, and to have some certainty in their life is comforting. This is never an easy time for players.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Rangers win does not have much significance right now, if any at all. It is more for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":478272,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5113],"tags":[5,160,35,4,118,1469,100,5216,43,3042],"class_list":{"0":"post-478271","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pittsburgh-penguins","8":"tag-hockey","9":"tag-mika-zibanejad","10":"tag-new-york-rangers","11":"tag-nhl","12":"tag-penguins","13":"tag-pittsburgh","14":"tag-pittsburgh-penguins","15":"tag-pittsburghpenguins","16":"tag-sports","17":"tag-vincent-trocheck"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116152142905357185","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478271","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=478271"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478271\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/478272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=478271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=478271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=478271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}