{"id":519579,"date":"2026-03-24T03:50:17","date_gmt":"2026-03-24T03:50:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/519579\/"},"modified":"2026-03-24T03:50:17","modified_gmt":"2026-03-24T03:50:17","slug":"rangers-fall-flat-against-senators-after-honoring-mike-zibanejads-milestone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/519579\/","title":{"rendered":"Rangers fall flat against Senators after honoring Mike Zibanejad&#8217;s milestone"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Rangers hit the mark with their on-ice ceremony honoring Mika Zibanejad ahead of his 1,000th NHL game Monday night.<\/p>\n<p>Once the players hit the Madison Square Garden ice, however, the Blueshirts struggled to hit the mark on anything.<\/p>\n<p>The result was a 2-1 loss to the Senators, the team that traded Zibanejad to New York July 18, 2016.<\/p>\n<p>After a moving tribute video narrated by Zibanejad\u2019s wife, Irma, fellow members of the leadership group presented the longest-tenured Ranger and his family with gifts from the organization.<\/p>\n<p>Gifts included a trip to Greece for the whole family, a mini silver stick for his daughter, Ella, and a custom-engraved silver hockey stick for Zibanejad to commemorate the 1,000-game milestone.<\/p>\n<p>The heartwarming ceremony bled into a stiff opening 20 minutes for the Rangers.<\/p>\n<p><img style=\"aspect-ratio:1.4301676;display:block\" fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" data-modal-image=\"38873535\" width=\"844\" height=\"590\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/ottawa-senators-left-wing-warren-124288792.jpg\" alt=\"Ottawa Senators left wing Warren Foegele celebrates after scoring a goal.\" class=\"wp-image-38873535\"  \/>Senators left wing Warren Foegele celebrates with Ottawa Senators left wing Fabian Zetterlund after Foegele scores a goal during the second period at Madison Square Garden in New York, New York, USA, Monday, March 23, 2026.  JASON SZENES FOR THE NEW YORK POST<\/p>\n<p>The Senators got a power-play goal from Shane Pinto and hit two posts before the home team even put one puck on net.<\/p>\n<p>It was Juuso Parssinen, playing his first game since March 12 in Winnipeg, finally recorded the Rangers\u2019 first shot on goal with 6:11 left in the first period.<\/p>\n<p>The Rangers didn\u2019t get another until they earned a power play later in the frame.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" style=\"aspect-ratio:1.45661451;display:block\" decoding=\"async\" data-modal-image=\"38873546\" width=\"859\" height=\"590\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/new-york-rangers-mika-zibanejad-124283868.jpg\" alt=\"New York Rangers player Mika Zibanejad waves to the fans after being honored for his 1000th career game.\" class=\"wp-image-38873546\"  \/>Mika Zibanejad waves to the fans as he is honored for his 1000th career game before the first period at Madison Square Garden i JASON SZENES FOR THE NEW YORK POST<\/p>\n<p>Parssinen then flipped the puck over the glass \u2014 the first of two such bench minors committed by the Rangers \u2014 ensuring his team finished the first short-handed.<\/p>\n<p>The Rangers could only funnel two more pucks at Ottawa goalie James Reimer over the next 20 minutes, finishing with a mere nine on the night.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\tRead the expert take on the Blueshirts\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p class=\"inline-module__cta\">\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<p>\t\t\t\t\t\tThank you\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>Four shots through two periods were the fewest for the Rangers since 1965-66, when the NHL started tracking shots per period.<\/p>\n<p>While Conor Sheary got the Rangers on the board just over seven minutes into the final frame, the equalizer never came.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Rangers hit the mark with their on-ice ceremony honoring Mika Zibanejad ahead of his 1,000th NHL game&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":519580,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5111],"tags":[5,160,3328,35,5190,5193,4,25,36,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-519579","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-mika-zibanejad","10":"tag-new-york","11":"tag-new-york-rangers","12":"tag-newyork","13":"tag-newyorkrangers","14":"tag-nhl","15":"tag-ottawa-senators","16":"tag-rangers","17":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116282120073421326","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519579","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=519579"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519579\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/519580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=519579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=519579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=519579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}