3 takeaways for the Rangers heading into the holiday break
Rangers center Mika Zibanejad skates with the puck during the first period of an NHL hockey game against the Capitals on Tuesday, Dec. 23, 2025, in Washington. Credit: AP/Nick Wass
It’s been a hectic and exhausting pre-Christmas slog for the Rangers, who have played a league-high 39 games in the condensed Olympic-year schedule. But thanks to a five-goal third period in their 7-3 comeback victory over Washington on Tuesday, they can fully enjoy the NHL’s three-day break before Saturday’s game against the Islanders.
Here are three takeaways from the first half of the Rangers’ season, which has produced a 19-16-4 record:
1. The Eastern Conference playoff race will be a dogfight
At the break, six points separate 10 teams in the conference, from the second-place team in the Metropolitan Division to the eighth-place team in the wild-card standings. Nobody has really been able to separate from the pack, and with all of the injuries that every team has been forced to deal with, there’s no reason to assume that will change anytime soon. The Rangers are tied for the second wild-card spot, but it’ll be imperative for them to extend their winning streaks as much as possible and shorten their losing streaks as quickly as possible.
2. They’ve played great defense
After years of playing high-risk, east-west, turnover-filled hockey that inevitably led to too many high-grade scoring chances against and put immense pressure on goalies Igor Shesterkin and Jonathan Quick to bail them out, coach Mike Sullivan has gotten them to play more north-south and to be more responsible defensively.
Through good defense, they’ve actually created more offense. While they’ve allowed more shots on goal (28.3 per game) than they’ve taken (26.0 per game) they’ve created more scoring chances (851-799) and more high-danger chances (366-307) than they’ve allowed, according to Natural Stat Trick.
That’s good. Now all they have to do is score on more of those great chances they’re getting.
3. Mika Zibanejad is bouncing back
He needed to after a disappointing 20-goal, 62-point season in 2024-25. While he’s not looking at the 39-goal, 91-point season he put up in 2022-23 (or the 41 goals in 57 games he had in 2019-20), at the pace he’s on, he would score 26 goals, more in line with his 82-game average of 27.6 for his career.
The return of Adam Fox from an upper-body injury for the second half of the season should improve the power play, which likely will mean an uptick in goals and points for Zibanejad as well, so the numbers at season’s end might be even better than the current projections. He has seven power-play goals in 2025-26 — as many as he had all of last season — and his next will tie him with his pal Chris Kreider and Camille Henry for the franchise lead in power-play goals with 116. To make the playoffs, the Rangers will need other players to produce, but without a productive Zibanejad, they don’t have a chance.
Colin Stephenson covers the Rangers for Newsday. He has spent more than two decades covering the NHL and just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.
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