Daily Report – 11/11/25
Rangers
Before last night, one giant question loomed over the Rangers: Would they ever win at home again? It had been five tumultuous weeks, and they were 0-6-1 on Garden ice with five shutout losses. But last night, something changed, and the Rangers answered their biggest question with a 6-3 win over the Nashville Predators.
What a relief. Finally, the Rangers overcame their biggest hurdle. Now, their home record is 1-6-1, and with Vincent Trocheck back, it’s full steam ahead on Broadway.
“Glad that I was able to get back in time,” said Trocheck, who recorded two assists after missing 14 games with an upper-body injury. “His presence alone was a huge boost for the group, especially given the circumstances at home,” head coach Mike Sullivan remarked.
This game was different than most, not just because of how complete the Rangers’ roster was, but because of how they scored their six goals. They stopped overcompensating for missing offense, and they took a different approach, allowing Nashville to outshoot them 30-18. But when it came to creating scoring chances, which are much more valuable than shots on goal, the Rangers held the upper hand.
“The message has been, ‘Let’s continue to understand what that game looks like when we’re at our best,’ and we generated offense,” Sullivan said. “We just haven’t scored as many goals.”
As soon as the Rangers drew their first penalty, Sullivan deployed a different power play unit than usual. The Rangers have been one of the worst teams in the league at converting on power plays this season, but the combination of Alexis Lafrenière, Gabe Perreault, Vincent Trocheck, Artemi Panarin, and Braden Schneider cashed in. Thanks to Schneider’s stable neutral zone, the Rangers were able to gain the blue line, and Lafrenière retrieved a pass from Perreault and slipped it between Juuse Saros’s legs.
Perreault, who made his season debut for the Rangers yesterday, earned his first career NHL point with an assist, and Lafrenière scored his third goal of the year. The former first-overall pick finished the night with three points, which boosted his confidence tremendously. For the first time in what has felt like more than a year, Lafrenière looked like a stable hockey player, and the Rangers won their first home game since April.
“Tonight, we scored goals,” said Sullivan. “Hopefully, that reinforces the process a little bit and just gives us that much more belief that if we play a certain way, we can compete with any team in this league. My hope is that we can use this win tonight as a big boost of confidence.”
The Rangers’ decision to push the button and call up Perreault paid dividends. Reports out of Hartford claimed Perreault, who had won last week’s AHL Player of the Week award, had reached another level offensively, and the 20-year-old forward backed up those reports. In addition to notching his first career point, Perreault was all over this game, making the most of his top-line minutes alongside Mike Zibanejad and JT Miller. He was on the ice for the Rangers’ first goal of the night, which was Zibanejad’s fifth of the season.
After a couple of impressive plays by Adam Edstrom, Zibanejad held onto the puck as he moved out of the offensive zone. He passed it back to Adam Fox, made an impressive pass back to Zibanejad up the middle. Zibanejad split the defense, deked a couple of times, and scored over Saros’s glove. It was an impressive goal, and it would have never happened without incredible puck possession by multiple Rangers players.
“It just felt like, from a mindset standpoint, the group was in the right place, in the right head space,” said Sullivan. “That’s such an important part of winning.”
Nashville tied the game six minutes after Zibanejad’s goal, but the Rangers weren’t worried. With just under two minutes left in the first period, Fox skated through a defenseman and drove the puck into the corner, and passed it back to Trocheck, who found an open Vladislav Gavrikov. The defenseman fired a wrist shot toward the net, and thanks to a tough screen by Lafrenière, the Rangers regained the lead.
In the second period, seven minutes after Lafrenière’s power-play goal, he made a perfect pass to Artemi Panarin at the point, who fired a hard slap shot through a couple of screens that trickled through Saros’s legs.
Then, with 10 seconds left in the second period, Lafrenière and Noah Laba made a great play at the defensive blue line, and with Will Cuylle on their left, they emerged on an odd-man rush. Laba passed the puck into Cuylle’s skates, but he patiently cradled it and fired it past Saros to give the Rangers a 5-1 lead.
In the third period, Matthew Wood completed a hat trick for Nashville, but it wasn’t enough to catch the Rangers, especially after Panarin scored again. On a misplay behind the net by Nashville’s Spencer Statsney, Panarin snapped the puck around the pole behind Saros for the goal. He finished the night with three points, just like his linemate Lafrenière. In total, the line of Panarin, Lafrenière, and Vincent Trocheck combined for seven points. It was as if Trocheck had never left.
“It’s just nice to have depth,” said Trocheck. “Really, they’ve been playing great [while I was hurt]. The identity of our team has changed a lot, and it really shows from game to game. It’s just a lot tougher to play against, and we’re playing the right way every night. It feels like, aside from one or two games, I feel like every night, we’re bringing the right energy and the right style of play.”
The Rangers will go back on the road tomorrow as they visit Tampa Bay. Then, on Saturday night, they will visit Columbus as part of a road-home back-to-back set that concludes on Sunday against Detroit.
Knicks
I don’t want to laugh at the Brooklyn Nets, but they didn’t put up much of a fight against the Knicks on Sunday. That’s because the local tankers couldn’t handle the Knicks, and they got crushed 134-98 at Madison Square Garden. After outscoring Brooklyn 40-22 in the first quarter, the Knicks led by as many as 39 points in a wire-to-wire victory, improving their home record to 6-0.
Sometimes, talented teams reduce their competitiveness while facing lesser competition, but the Knicks didn’t do that. They outplayed Brooklyn in every way, with balanced scoring and an impressive 31 assists. Karl-Anthony Towns led the Knicks with 28 points, and Mitchell Robinson dominated defensively, recording a +40 rating.
“Yeah, we’re talented,” said head coach Mike Brown. “No matter what we do on the floor, we’re going to have the ability to score. But you take the regular season, and you prepare for the postseason. If you just go out there and play the wrong way and win, we still probably are going to score because we’re talented and we’ve got a lot of guys that can score. But it’s not going to help us later on.”
This is like how, in 2023, after the New York Rangers lost to the New Jersey Devils in the first round of the playoffs, head coach Gerard Gallant said, “Talent doesn’t mean a thing.” The key difference, though, is that Brown is saying this one month into the season. Not after a season-ending defeat.
I’ve written countless times that the expectations for this Knicks team are as high as ever, and this is the season for them to win a championship. A win against a team like the 1-9 Nets doesn’t prove anything about the Knicks’ championship potential. It was a great display of talent, which will serve as an important piece of the championship puzzle the Knicks are building, but it was also, quite frankly, an easy dub.
“There are things that we have to continue to try to get better at in terms of our recognition and stuff like that out on the floor,” Brown said. “And our pace, get the ball in bounds on a make, not walking the ball up, getting right to our stuff. […] There are a lot of little things.”
It’s a gift for Knicks fans to listen to Brown criticize the Knicks after blowout wins because that criticism is reserved exclusively for championship contenders. Think about it: In sports, if a team, especially a bad one, outscores another by a significant amount, they are more likely to receive praise than hatred. So, Brown’s reaction proves the Knicks understand their lofty goals. Wins like Sunday’s are stepping stones, not causes for celebration.
“We don’t have expectations,” Jalen Brunson, the captain, said. “We are just looking to get better every single day, and with that being said, you can’t just say, ‘Hey, let’s get better at this.’ It’s about not being complacent and being more fluent in the stuff we run, where everything is an instinct and we’re not thinking about what we’re doing. Everything’s a reaction, and it comes seamless like that, so we’re working toward that.”
This is the perfect attitude. The finest version of a championship mentality. Brunson’s approach should not be taken for granted. He wants to win a championship. It’s all he cares about. Imagine what it would be like if the Knicks popped champagne after every win. There wouldn’t be accountability. The locker room wouldn’t be mentally poised for a long postseason.
“So yeah, the ball’s going through the hoop,” Brunson said. “But we can be a lot better.”
Tonight, at 7:30 PM (6:30 PM CST), the Knicks will debut their new City Edition jerseys as they host the Memphis Grizzlies (MSG, Gotham Sports).
Schedule
7:30 PM (6:30 PM CST): NYK vs. MEM; MSG, Gotham Sports
