Rangers vs. Canucks: Winning Ugly
Adam Fox and Mika shine, Quick stands tall, and the Rangers finally get it done out west. Not very pretty, but oh well.
- Before we get to the game, there are two injury related updates. Vincent Trocheck has started skating again. That's a positive development, because the ripple effects of Trocheck's absense from the lineup are considerable. And, at this point, do we need to talk about how playing with Mika Zibanejad will get J.T. Miller going instead of the other way around?
- In the bad news category, Matt Rempe is out for multiple weeks with what is rumored to be a broken thumb, almost certainly suffered in his fight with Ryan Reaves in the game against the San Jose Sharks. I do think there's a role for fighting in the NHL. It's a diminishing role, for sure, but it's still there. But that fight against Reaves was, to me, pointless. He was trying to wake up his team that was flat against a bad Sharks team. Okay, how did that turn out? He was defending his teammate. And now he'll be unable to defend anyone, or play the brand of effective hockey he was playing, because of this injury. I think it was dumb and unnecessary.
- Now, the roster adjustments.
#NYR warmup lines vs. Canucks:
— Mollie Walker (@MollieeWalkerr) October 29, 2025
Panarin-Zibanejad-Cuylle
Sheary-Miller-Lafrenière
Pärssinen-Laba-Raddysh
Edström-Carrick-Brodzinski
Gavrikov-Fox
Soucy-Borgen
Vaakanainen-Schneider
Quick
Shesterkin
- First, Brennan Othmann out, and Jonny Brodzinski in. Look, I get it. I've seen it. "Why call up Othmann if you're going to yank him from the lineup after one game?" That's a fair enough point, but also, Othmann did himself no favors in the Calgary game. He was straight up bad. He had the puck feet from Dustin Wolf and opted to pass instead of shoot. And that probably wasn't even his most egregious mistake in that game. He could have helped his case by not playing crappy hockey, just like he could have helped his case in the preseason by grabbing the opportunity and not letting it go.
