The Rangers’ problems don’t stem from Mike Sullivan 

After a horribly disappointing 2024-2025 campaign that saw the New York Rangers go from winning the Presidents’ Trophy and making the Eastern Conference Final the year prior to missing the playoffs altogether, general manager Chris Drury opted to make a drastic move.

Drury dismissed Peter Laviolette after just two seasons at the helm and hired Mike Sullivan, a former Rangers assistant under John Tortorella and two-time Stanley Cup champion with the Pittsburgh Penguins.

Through eight games, the results don’t look great, as New York owns a 3-4-1 record and has scored just one goal in four losses on home ice. But under the hood, Sullivan has the Rangers playing a much better brand of hockey, generating more quality scoring chances and limiting the amount of such opportunities that star goalie Igor Shesterkin has to deal with.

On Friday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, host Tyler Yaremchuk and co-host and former NHL goaltender Carter Hutton were joined by former NHL video coach Steve Peters to discuss why Sullivan is making an impact and the results could turn at any moment.

Tyler Yaremchuk: That ties into a question we got in our chat… we have a lot of Rangers fans who obviously watch the show, and they want to know how long will it take Mike Sullivan to get this Rangers team fully bought in and playing up to their talent level?

Steve Peters: The New York Rangers’ problems, and this is my personal opinion, I don’t think they stemmed from coaching problems a year ago with Peter Laviolette. We talked about the disruption they had in the locker room with the general manager sending out memos and everybody kind of blew up the room. That’s tough to recover from. Mike Sullivan’s a great coach, and right now this is a roster where you go okay, where are the New York Rangers going? They do have some top end talent, but right now this is a team that needs secondary scoring, needs to have some more balance through their lineup, but they’re just not scoring. They’re playing pretty well.

You can watch the full segment and the rest of the episode here…