The true character of a team is shown in times of adversity.
The New York Rangers had their backs against the wall against the Montreal Canadiens on Saturday night, and still managed to fight their way back, leading to a crucial 4-3 victory.
Going into this matchup, the Rangers had scored just one goal over their past three games, as their lack of scoring was becoming concerning.
Adversity was already beginning to strike the Rangers directly in the face, and to make matters worse, the Canadiens opened up Saturday night’s contest with two goals within the first five minutes.
The crowd at the Bell Centre was going into a frenzy. Meanwhile, the Blueshirts just couldn’t keep up with this speedy Habs team.
The Rangers appeared to be spiraling out of control, with nothing being able to truly stop this downward spiral.
“I just thought Montreal, in the first, you know, five-six minutes of the game, they were just one step quicker than we were,” Sullivan said. “We didn’t think quick. We didn’t act quick.”
A power-play goal from Mika Zibanejad in the middle of the first period helped slightly weather the Canadiens’ storm, but the Rangers still struggled to generate offense and contain Montreal’s speed through the opening 20 minutes.
In the second period, the Rangers suddenly flipped a switch.
The Rangers completely transformed from a defensive standpoint, staying true to a defensively-oriented game that Sullivan has tried to instill.
New York showed a level of physicality that we have simply not seen in what feels like ages, headlined by Sam Carrick’s hit on Lane Hudson and fight against Arber Xhekaj.
“I think we were quicker to close,” Zibanejad said of the Rangers’ defensive improvements. “I think we’re just a little bit more aggressive. I thought we did a better job of that in the second and third.”
It was in the third period when the floodgates finally burst wide open for the Rangers.
After multiple games of offensive frustration from a lack of scoring, the Blueshirts tallied a barrage of goals.
Within a span of less than 10 minutes, J.T. Miller scored on the power play to tie the game, Matthew Robertson recorded his first NHL goal, giving the Rangers the lead, and Artemi Panarin finally got onto the scoresheet with a goal of his own.
There was so much talk of the Rangers’ scoring slump, as it seemed like it would last an eternity.
It would have been easy for the Blueshirts to panic and drastically change their style of play, but instead, they believed in themselves and stayed true to their identity in every sense of the word.
Despite hearing all of the constant noise about their scoring woes, the team continued to put forth a positive message, and that mindset helped them overcome this dreadful slump.
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“I mean, it was really easy just to kind of feel sorry for ourselves for the past few games,” said Zibanejad. “I feel like because we’ve been getting our looks, just because we’ve been playing the way we’ve been playing. I think there’s a belief in this group that we’re right there.”
Based on the Rangers’ mental and internal struggles last season, it could have been safe to assume they would fall through that same path of misery and despair.
However, with Sullivan running the show, the Rangers showed a different identity and sense of strong mental toughness.
Maybe it’s early on in the 2025-26 campaign, but this win means more than just the two points the Rangers earned.
“I thought it was a real gutsy effort by the guys,” Sullivan said. “When you go through some of the early adversity that we’ve gone through here, that game could have gone south fast… I just give the guys a lot of credit.
“I think you’ll learn about your group when you go through experiences like this. What we learned is that we’ve got a high character group in there that there’s a certain resilience to them that I think is admirable and necessary to win this league, so couldn’t be more proud of them.”
The Rangers will be back in action on Monday night against the Minnesota Wild.
