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New York Rangers<\/a> fans have received some positive news despite the team\u2019s demoralizing 2025-26 season. Although they entered the campaign with relatively high hopes, the Rangers<\/a> struggled and finished without a playoff berth. Not only did they miss the postseason, but New York ended the season with the third-worst record in the NHL.<\/p>\n Due to the team\u2019s underwhelming campaign, general manager Chris Drury will continue making major moves in the offseason. Vincent Trocheck and Braden Schneider are expected to be offloaded this summer<\/a>. There has also been plenty of speculation regarding the futures<\/a> of star veterans\u00a0Adam Fox and Mika Zibanejad. Many wondered if the key players were willing to stick it out through the retooling.<\/p>\n Nevertheless, both players have since committed to New York. Fox told The Athletic\u2019s Vince Mercogliano<\/a> that he recently noticed \u201cpromising signs\u201d in the team. Zibanejad, on the other hand, was more emphatic on his plans. Rangers players were interviewed on April 17 as they cleaned out their lockers for the year. Reporters obviously asked Zibanejad how he felt about the retool.\u00a0\u201cI want to be here,\u201d proclaimed the forward, as reported by SNY<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve been here for 10 years. I\u2019ve gone through the ups and downs. For me, yeah, retool or whatever, but you just look around the league and see how fast it can go\u2026 I\u2019m optimistic, especially with the young guys coming in, too, and playing. I don\u2019t feel like we need a whole lot. I want to be here to turn this around and hopefully get another chance to win [a Stanley Cup].\u201d<\/p>\n New York Rangers Fans Call on Mika Zibanejad to be New Club Captain GettyMika Zibanejad had a solid season despite New York\u2019s place in the standings.<\/p>\n It is safe to say that Rangers fans liked what they heard from Zibanejad. Many supporters immediately took to social media to support the star. In fact, the two most-liked comments under Mercogliano\u2019s post<\/a> referencing the fresh Zibanejad quotes call for the center to become the new club captain.<\/p>\n Fellow forward J.T. Miller was previously named captain of the Rangers<\/a> in September 2025. The veteran\u2019s first season at the helm was certainly rocky. New York fans ripped Miller in November<\/a> after a video surfaced on social media showing the star not giving his all during a game. The forward was also criticized for making bizarre comments<\/a> after a shutout loss to the Carolina Hurricanes<\/a> in February.<\/p>\n Despite the tough campaign, Miller recently claimed that he was \u201cnot unhappy<\/a>\u201d with how his season turned out. This was even though he posted disappointing stats across the board, including having just 15 takeaways against 84 giveaways<\/a>. Both of these figures are career-worst for the star during a full season.<\/p>\n New York Unlikely to Change Captains This Summer<\/p>\n The New York Rangers are not expected to make a captain change ahead of the 2026-27 season, though. Miller is signed until the summer of 2030, and his $8 million AAV contract<\/a> will be almost impossible to move anytime soon. Zibanejad also recently praised his captain<\/a> for handling such a difficult year.<\/p>\n While New York fans have noticed Zibanejad\u2019s decline in production during recent seasons, he did manage to bounce back in 2025-26. Despite the disappointing campaign for the club, the center racked up 34 goals and 44 assists<\/a> (78 points) on the year. This was his highest tally since the 2022-23 season.<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tChristopher Moore<\/a> Christopher Moore has been a Heavy.com contributor since 2025. With over a decade of experience in the industry, he has published thousands of articles reporting on multiple professional sports. He was previously a sports writer for World Soccer Talk, the Yahoo! Contributor Network, and the Maryland Sports Blog. More about Christopher Moore<\/a>\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tMore Heavy on NY Rangers\n\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\tLoading more stories\n\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Getty New York Rangers fans have received some positive news despite the team\u2019s demoralizing 2025-26 season. Although they…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":554753,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5111],"tags":[5,3328,35,5190,5193,4,36],"class_list":{"0":"post-554752","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"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116421793932121240","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554752","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=554752"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554752\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/554753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=554752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=554752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=554752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/GettyImages-2265959670-e1776450598512.jpg\")
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