Sidney Crosby and the Pittsburgh Penguins had the final laugh over Mike Sullivan and the New York Rangers in the opening game of the 2025-26 NHL season. Following the defeat, the new head coach in NYC voiced a clear statement about captain J.T. Miller.
The Rangers couldn’t give their new coach a debut win over his former club in the NHL. Crosby and the Penguins walked into Madison Square Garden and played spoiler on the opening night for fans in The Big Apple.
Not only did the Penguins defeat the Broadway Blueshirts, they handed them a deflating shutout loss. Debuting new goalie Arturs Silovs shut the door and kept all 25 shots he faced out of the net during the showdown in New York.
Concerns around the captain
However, a bigger reason for concern in New York was Miller’s debut as captain, as the veteran looked out of rhythm. Now, Sullivan delivered a sincere statement on Miller’s performance against the Penguins in the opening night of the 2025-26 NHL campaign.
“We’re gonna have to take it day by day. Obviously, J.T. missed a fair amount of training camp, as did [Artemi Panarin]. So, those two guys are jumping on a moving train,” Sullivan admitted, via The Athletic’s Vince Mercogliano.
“When you miss that much time, it’s not easy to jump back into an NHL game at NHL pace, even from a conditioning standpoint. I think those guys will get better with every game they play. I think they’ll get better with timing and reads and all of those things. We’ll take each day as it comes, and we’ll try to manage it accordingly.”
Miller’s outing by the numbers
The former Vancouver Canucks forward had a very quiet night, which ironically led to much noise around him. Miller finished the night with 18:18 minutes of ice time in 24 shifts. However, he registered no shots on goal and recorded a plus/minus of -2. It’s Miller’s first game with a +/- of -2 and 0 SOG since January 16, 2025. Back then, Miller was still a Canuck.
Journey’s only just begun
While a disappointing start to the new season, Sullivan and the Rangers can’t let this defeat become bigger than it has to be. It’s time to put the loss behind them and focus on what’s next in the schedule. For Sullivan, bouncing back is key—nay, it’s imperative.
“I think my first observation is, we got a long way to go to become the team we want to become,” Sullivan said postgame, per NHL.com. “I thought we had moments in the game where we were playing the game that we envisioned, but it’s not nearly consistently enough.”
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Next in New York’s schedule is a trip to the Niagara Falls to take on the Buffalo Sabres at KeyBank Center on October 9. If the loss to Crosby and the Penguins still doesn’t feel right with Sullivan, the Blueshirts will get the chance to avenge it when they visit the Pens at PPG Paints Arena on October 11.