headtopics
The New York Rangers' power play is showing signs of progress after a slow start to the season, though it will take more than a five-game stretch to return to the form of previous years. The latest small step has been encouraging for the Blueshirts, who have scored a power-play goal in four of their past five games, going 4-for-15 over that span. That stretch has improved their success rate to 20.6 percent, which ranks 18th in the league entering play Saturday.
The shift began six games ago when head coach Mike Sullivan changed his lines and started using star defenseman Adam Fox with both power-play units when possible. The early returns with the new units have suggested a hint of progress for a group that had been struggling. In the second period of Friday's 5-1 win over the Vancouver Canucks, Oliver Bjorkstrand veered into the bumper area before collecting a pass from J.T. Miller in the slot and scoring.
Mika Zibanejad, Tye Kartye and Pavel Dorofeyev have also scored during the stretch since Sullivan made the changes, giving both new-look units a pair of goals. The primary change stemmed from Gabe Perreault's elevation to the first unit, but Kartye also joined the second group while Fox, with Sean Durzi out, quarterbacked both units as long as he didn't need to skate down the ice following clears too many times.
The recent uptick in man-advantage production has added to special-teams success that already includes one of the league's best penalty-kill units. After killing all four of their penalties against Vancouver, which marked a league-leading 14th time this season they've had a perfect game on the penalty kill, the Rangers sat second in the NHL with an 89.1 percent success rate.
"I thought we spent a lot of time in our zone from the penalty-kill standpoint, but I thought those guys really dug in," Sullivan said of the penalty-kill unit Friday, specifically referencing Noah Laba, Will Cuylle, Vladislav Gavrikov and Marcus Pettersson when they got stuck on the ice for long shifts. "They competed hard."
Chris Kreider, who was traded in June 2025 and made his MSG return last year, was set to play his second game at his former home rink since the deal when the Blueshirts host the Canadiens on Monday, but Kreider was injured during Thursday's game against the Bruins and given a recovery timeline of 6-8 weeks. Kreider, who inked a one-year deal with the Canadiens for the 2026-27 campaign to join an Eastern Conference contender, had collected three goals and nine points through 19 games.
With his assist on Alexis Lafreniere's goal in the second period Friday, Zibanejad extended his point streak to five games, and Fox recorded his team-leading 23rd point of the season with the secondary assist on Bjorkstrand's power-play goal.
Originally reported by headtopics.