LAS VEGAS — It feels strange to type these words, given what we saw from Nov. 21 to the end of 2024. During that 40-day stretch, the Rangers fell apart in every way imaginable.
And now, they’ve only picked up the pieces for six games. But after toughing out a 2-1 win over the league-leading Golden Knights on Saturday to get back to .500, here’s a bold prediction for the new year:
These Rangers are making the playoffs.
“I feel like we’ve kind of found something here,” said Adam Edström, who made a neat redirection of Jonny Brodzinski’s pass off the rush 5:57 into the third to provide the winning margin. “Especially with the defense we’ve been playing.”
JONNY ➡️ EDDY.
THAT’LL DO. pic.twitter.com/QqAeF6NrNX
— New York Rangers (@NYRangers) January 12, 2025
If you watched these Rangers during that 40-day slide, when they lost 15 of 19 and lost every bit of confidence and mojo they seemingly ever had, you wouldn’t have believed this same team could do the things it’s done during this 4-1-1 run. And especially the last two games, when the Rangers pulled 4 points off the Devils and Knights, two of the better teams in the league in the first half of the season.
They’re contesting pucks all over the defensive zone. They’re up the ice, disrupting plays in the offensive zone at five-on-five, as they did an awful lot in the first period Saturday. Even when there’s pushback, as Vegas had in the second and third, the passivity and confusion that marked the long stretch of awfulness is gone, replaced by some fight.
Filip Chytil missed Saturday’s game, leaving the bottom six looking like something out of a preseason contest. That might have normally invited an opposing team to feast on the Rangers. Instead, it was an invitation to play the sort of grinding game that had been absent for weeks, capped by a fourth-line goal started by a heady outlet pass from Matt Rempe.
“We were hard defensively and that’s something we really wanted to clean up,” said Ryan Lindgren, who had a massive, body-sacrificing shot block in the third to help preserve the lead, the second game in a row he’s done that. “That’s the key to winning games.”
A couple of wins over good teams can’t completely erase a 4-15-0 skid. And it’s going out on a limb to say this team, sitting 4 points back of the last playoff spot with five teams to pass to get there, can continue to climb back up steadily after taking such a steep fall. But there are reasons to believe.
The main one is this: None of those teams they’re chasing have Igor Shesterkin. He’s still the best goalie in the world when he’s not facing a dozen high-danger chances a night and, while he never had to come up with anything eye-popping Saturday, he was so sharp. He had 23 saves over the final two periods, 12 out of 12 in the third, including a late power play that turned into a six-on-four for Vegas after the Knights pulled Ilya Samsonov.
It wasn’t all Shesterkin, but he can radiate that confidence back out to his team to be able to win these low-scoring games. Saturday was the fifth time this season the Rangers won when scoring two or less and just the second time it’s happened since Nov. 17. It’s not their high-powered offense that will get them back into the thick of the playoff chase, it’s their defense, from the goalie on out.
The other reason that saying the Rangers will make the playoffs is bold is that Chris Drury’s remaking of the roster, which began with the Jacob Trouba and Kaapo Kakko trades, isn’t done. Chris Kreider and Lindgren have been on the block for a bit. Lindgren, a pending UFA, almost certainly won’t be back next season and it’s not likely the Rangers will let him leave July 1 and get nothing in return.
Subtracting anyone else off the roster without filling that vacancy will make a playoff chase difficult. The Rangers have gotten some strong games out of Will Borgen, another pending UFA who came from the Kraken in the Kakko trade, and Borgen would be a decent option to extend beyond this season if he’d be willing to take third-pair minutes in 2025-26. That too seems unlikely, so Borgen is another possible trade piece before the March 7 deadline.
Mika Zibanejad, whose name has been bandied about as a potential trade option as well, has rediscovered his 200-foot game. Points in six straight is nice, even though he almost put a hole in Vincent Trocheck with an errant one-timer that caught Trocheck in the midsection before No. 16 swept the puck in to tie the game. But watching Zibanejad’s quick stops and starts at the top of the penalty-kill diamond in the third period, keeping Shea Theodore from finding an open lane, is much more crucial to the Rangers’ needs.
The Rangers are defending better, especially at five-on-five. They’ve cut way down on chances against off the rush, going back to Peter Laviolette’s 1-3-1 neutral-zone system since the new year began after getting away from it in an attempt to get more puck possession up the ice. That has helped prevent teams from flying in with speed and getting the Rangers’ defense corps chasing. “We’re tighter,” is how Braden Schneider put it Saturday afternoon, meaning the Rangers aren’t getting stretched out of position nearly as often as they did in December.
That was a 19-game run of ineptitude, bringing us reporters and fans alike together in wondering why the Rangers looked so unemotional and disinterested. There are many factors why that we’ve cataloged before and possibly more to come. Those facts can’t be changed.
But the Rangers have changed in the last 11 days. They look like a team again, one that you believe could go far in the playoffs, as it did two of the last three seasons. One that could be a problem if it turns things around and makes the 2024-25 postseason, where squeezing into one of the wild-card spots could get the Rangers a first-round rematch with the Caps, a crack at the Devils, maybe a series with the Hurricanes, a team that seems to fold whenever it faces the Rangers.
A lot can happen in the next three months. Some of it may not benefit a playoff chase. But this team, playing this way, is a playoff contender.
I get plenty wrong in those bold predictions before every season. So take this with a whole shaker of salt.
But this Rangers team is making the playoffs.
(Photo of Will Borgen and Igor Shesterkin: Stephen R. Sylvanie / Imagn Images)
