Zib/Panarin Lead Way Day After Letter

A day after the letter was issued, the New York Rangers responded with a 6-3 road win over the Flyers. Three goals in 80 seconds in the first period set the tone with New York notching the next three tallies as well to give the team a 6-1 lead. The Blueshirts cruised the rest of the way with Spencer Martin stopping 25 of 28 shots to notch his first win with the team. New York heads out to California for contests against Anaheim (Monday), Los Angeles. (Tuesday) and San Jose  (Friday).

Game recap:

Rangers lines vs. Philly:

Perreault-Zibanejad-Miller
Panarin-Trocheck-Lafrenière
Othmann-Laba-Cuylle
Raddysh-Carrick-Brodzinski

Gavrikov-Schneider
Robertson-Borgen
Vaakanainen-Morrow

Martin
Quick

Scratches: Rempe, Mackey, Soucy (personal, not listed on roster right now)
IR: Shesterkin (lower-body injury)
LTIR: Edström (lower-body injury), Sheary (lower-body injury), Fox (lower-body injury)

A few thoughts:

1) Mika Zibanejad became the Rangers’ all-time leader in power-play goals and his three-goal performance tied the team record for most career hat tricks in the win. His goal on a man advantage at 5:38 of the second period gave him 117 power-play goals, moving him past Camille Henry and Chris Kreider, who each had 116 for New York. The hat trick was his 10th of his career, tying him with Bill Cook for the franchise record. More impressive was what Brennan Othmann, who notched his first goal of the season, said about Zibanejad as a leader, interesting because of the criticism of him in the past. 

Othmann was clearly relieved after the game about netting his first goal, admitting he'd been thinking about the drought "every day."

He noted one veteran, in particular, who helped him get through it:

"Mika came up to me in the Seattle game and said not to hang your head and…

— Vince Z. Mercogliano (@vzmercogliano) January 17, 2026

2) Panarin, who will be moved, added a pair of goals and an assist. He is now up to 18 markers and 36 helpers in 48 contests. Say what you want about Panarin in the playoffs, but if he wasn’t productive during the regular season, the Rangers would have never sniffed two Preisdent’s Trophies or the playoffs during his tenure in New York. He will go down as the best free agent signing this organization ever made and one of the best offensive weapon on this squad. 

3) NHL Network provided their view Friday on what next for the Rangers following the letter. Mike Rupp noted that based on the moves made the last year, wasn’t that a retool, so is this a retool of the retool? In addition, part of the question was why announce that Panarin will not be offered an extension and does that limit your options. I can understand the view, but I think most knew that where they are and what Panarin wanted, the gap may not have been bridged. Personally, as mentioned in the piece, I would bring back Panarin because he is the primary offensive weapon now and possibly in the near-future, even with a rebuild/retool.