Mika Zibanejad was back in the Rangers lineup for Tuesday’s 3-0 loss to the Canucks at Madison Square Garden, after the Swede was benched the night before for missing a team meeting that day.
“It’s my 10th season now,” Zibanejad said in his first interview since. “I know what the challenges are and whatnot, but an unfortunate situation. I got stuck. We got stuck behind an accident. I’m just hoping everyone in that accident was fine. Rules are rules and I was late. There’s not much else to say honestly. That’s the reasoning why I was late.”
Slotting into the middle of the second line between Artemi Panarin and Alexis Lafreniere, Zibanejad recorded two shots on goal and won 42.9 percent of faceoffs (6/14) in 22:15 of ice time.
This sort of consequence is not out of the ordinary in the NHL.
The Lightning benched Brayden Point for missing a mandatory team meeting in January last season. Artyom Levshunov, the Blackhawks’ second-overall pick in 2024, was scratched on Tuesday for showing up late to practice.
In the NHL’s first episode of the “Road to the Winter Classic” on TNT, Zibanejad’s lengthy ride to MSG Training Center in Tarrytown from New York City was a talking point.
Mike Sullivan declined to reveal if it was a one-time thing for Zibanejad on Monday night, but the Rangers head coach assured the two had spoken about it and were on the same page about the consequence.
Matthew Robertson has gone from an organizational afterthought to a lineup regular.
Competing in his 17th consecutive game Tuesday night against the Canucks, Robertson has begun to make a home for himself on the Rangers’ third defensive pairing roughly six and a half years after the organization drafted him 49th overall in 2019.
“I think he’s come a long way,” Sullivan said. “I think he’s building confidence with every game that he’s played. Some of the things we like about his game are his mobility, his size, his reach. He defends well with his mobility and his physical stature. He’s got a physical edge to him when he’s at his best and he’s a pretty good puck mover. He sees it pretty good on the breakouts, off the offensive blue line, things of that nature.
“His puck-moving ability, I think, really helps us back there. I think with every game that he gets, he just gets a little bit more confidence.”
The loss of Adam Fox for the foreseeable future naturally caused some movement among the Blueshirts defense.
Sullivan made another tweak to the defensive combinations Tuesday night, replacing Urho Vaakanainen with rookie Scott on the bottom pairing with Robertson. As a result, Vaakanainen was a healthy scratch for the 15th time this season after appearing in the previous two.
As concerning as the start-of-period and end-of-period trend has been since it developed last season, the Rangers’ biggest obstacle remains putting the puck in the back of the net.
Their six shutout losses through 34 games lead the league, while the 2.59 goals-against average they carried into Tuesday’s game against the Canucks was the fourth-lowest behind only the Blues (2.53), Flames (2.48) and Kraken (2.47). It’s been a season-long struggle to score.
The Rangers faced a depleted Canucks team just four days after they traded their captain, Quinn Hughes, to Minnesota.
In addition to being without Hughes, Vancouver did not have ex-Ranger Filip Chytil, Elias Pettersson, Teddy Blueger, Pierre-Olivier Joseph or Derek Forbort.
