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Why Rangers captain must help coach ‘make sure his message gets through’
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- Why Rangers captain must help coach ‘make sure his message gets through’
Wendell Cruz-Imagn Images
Somewhere on their flight from New York to Milan, don't you just hope that the coach and captain of the New York Rangers had a long talk? And not just about the immediate task at hand, trying to help the United States win a gold medal at the Milan-Cortina Olympics. But more importantly, Mike Sullivan and J.T. Miller must discuss how to team up and somehow keep the Rangers afloat once they return from Italy.
That's because right now, not even rock bottom is too low for these last-place Rangers (22-29-6).
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You can see how much all of this wears on Sullivan and Miller. Each showed variations of anger, bewilderment, and frustration when speaking to the media following a one-sided 2-0 loss to the Carolina Hurricanes at Madison Square Garden on Thursday night.
Yet again, Miller was at a loss for words. And that didn't sit well with NHL insider Elliotte Friedman.
"I watch Miller and understand he's frustrated and I know losing sucks, but he's got to find a better way to deliver the message. Because the way he's doing it unfortunately right now it's making it worse," Friedman said Friday on his 32 Thoughts podcast. "I know he doesn't want to talk and I know he's frustrated, but you're the captain and you have to do it.
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"You have to go out there and come up with a better message than that."
It's up to general manager Chris Drury to find better players, preferably ones who are a combination of younger, faster, hungrier, and more physical, to enhance this current retool. But it's up to Sullivan and his coaching staff, and Miller and the leadership group, to keep this season somewhat on the rails despite the retool. The culture, play style, and effort level under Sullivan in his first-year as coach must be enforced by the bench boss and captain so that future seasons do not end up in the same dumpster fire.
Asked Thursday what message he left his team with heading into the three-week Olympic break and following another dispiriting defeat, Sullivan said a mouthful.
"I thought tonight we lacked a certain competitive spirit," Sullivan said. "That just is simply unacceptable on our part, and that was my discussion."
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Sullivan's spent much of this season staying as positive as possible. This was as down and irritable as he appeared all season.
"You can see Sullivan's frustration too. You can see he feels his message is not getting through. And I think that's one of the reasons the Rangers are taking it down a bit, is they picked this coach, they gave him term, they gave him a big contract, two-time Stanley Cup champion, this is our guy, and they look at it that the message is not getting through, it's the fault of the room as opposed to the fault of the coach," Friedman explained.
"So, they're backing their guy. But also, Miller's your captain, and Sullivan and Miller have to find a way to make sure his message gets through."
'No excuse' for Rangers not to push for strong finish despite miserable season
Peter Carr/The Journal News / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images
It wasn't supposed to be this way, of course. The Rangers hired Sullivan this past spring with the belief that his experience, and gravitas as one of the most respected coaches in the NHL would help make his message resonate with a team that embarrassingly went from winning the Presidents' Trophy and reaching the Eastern Conference Final in 2023-24, to missing the playoffs last season.
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It was a miscalculation that this group had it within itself to turn things around in 2025-26, even under Sullivan's guidance. There's a reason Braden Schneider and Mika Zibanejad each referred to the Rangers as being "fragile." Long-term injury absences by Adam Fox and Igor Shesterkin only exacerbated the situation. And the Rangers, teetering on the playoff bubble the first three months, cratered with a 3-13-1 record since Dec. 27.
Drury publicly threw in the towel on this season and proclaimed a retool is underway. That included trading Artemi Panarin to the Los Angeles Kings this week, instead of working out a contract extension with their most dynamic player, who was in the final season of a seven-year, $81.5 contract .
More trades are coming. More roster upheaval. But Drury's not going anywhere. Neither is Sullivan. And Miller's staying too. As Drury does his job , it's up to the coach and captain to band together and do theirs, hold this team together and hold it accountable at the same time.
"You can't just come back and waste your last six weeks of the season," Friedman stated.
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The Rangers schedule is hectic down the stretch; they play 25 games over the final 49 days of the regular season. The NHL Trade Deadline is March 6. Outsiders may suggest tanking as a strategy to try and win the NHL Draft Lottery.
Tanking likely isn't in Sullivan's vocabulary, nor Miller's. And Friedman is on board with that.
"Even if you have a bad season and a nightmare year, as it's unfortunately been for the Rangers, there's no excuse [not] to try and make it end well."
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