As the New York Rangers lost 2024-25 winds down, Mika Zibanejad is in the midst of one of his more productive stretches of the season. What that could mean for what’s sure to be a summer of significant change with the Rangers is yet to be determined.
After a seven-game stretch when he recorded one assist, Zibanejad awakened offensively with three goals and six assists in the eight contests since, including a four-assist effort in an ugly 8-5 home loss to the Philadelphia Flyers on Wednesday.
He added a goal and an assist in what proved to be an essentially meaningless 9-2 rout of the New York Islanders the next night. And Zibanejad was pointless and minus-4 when the Rangers were eliminated from the Eastern Conference playoff race with a 7-3 loss to the Carolina Hurricanes on Sunday.
Yet Zibanejad’s game still looks like a shadow of its former self. Lacking the jump that allowed him to average more than a point per game from 2019-24, the soon-to-be 32-year-old has 58 points (18 goals, 40 assists) in 80 games this season. No longer a major force on the power play, Zibanejad has scored only seven times with the man advantage in 2024-25 after averaging nearly 14 power-play goals over the previous seven seasons.
Mika Zibanejad’s once-formidable all-around game declined noticeably with Rangers this season
Perhaps just as disturbing, the club’s former No. 1 center has seen the outstanding 200-foot game that emerged in recent years deteriorate badly. Once so conscientious defensively, Zibanejad is a minus-25 this season after averaging a plus-23.3 mark over the previous three campaigns.
Plus/minus is not the most reliable stat, but advanced metrics paint a similar picture. Zibanejad has posted an expected goal share of 43.3 on the season, with the Rangers getting out-chanced by a 261-242 margin with him on the ice at 5-on-5, per Natural Stat Trick. His lowest expected goal mark of the previous five seasons was 52.2.
The eye test also reveals a player that appears to be a shell of the one who piled up 39 goals and 91 points as recently as 2022-23. He looks lost or disinterested in his own end and doesn’t seem to make the heady defensive plays he once did. Despite assisting on three even-strength and one short-handed goal against the Flyers, for example, Zibanejad was a minus-1 for the game — not an easy feat.
The quiet yet brash confidence that once oozed from the sixth overall pick in the 2011 NHL Draft when he had the puck on his stick has utterly dissipated. Zibanejad seems wracked by doubt now — doubt in his game, doubt in his responsibilities, and perhaps doubt over his ability to score like he once did.
There’s no question that general manager Chris Drury will undertake a busy offseason looking to transform a team that’s desperately in need of refurbishing, both in personnel and culture. Zibanejad’s long-time running mate and close friend Chris Kreider seems sure to be moving on this summer. The fate of Zibanejad is considerably more murky, given the onerous contract Drury lavished on him in October 2021 and which now seems to represent the worst liability on the Blueshirts’ salary cap going forward.
Zibanejad has five years left on that contract with an $8.5 million AAV. The next four of those years include a complete no-move cause which Zibanejad would need to waive in order to facilitate a trade.
The GM ruthlessly used waivers, or the threat of them, to dispose of Barclay Goodrow last summer and Jacob Trouba (who ultimately agreed to be dealt to the Anaheim Mighty Ducks rather than be waived) in December, but Zibanejad’s situation doesn’t really parallel those of his former teammates.
Still, Drury has shown that he’ll certainly try. The manner in which he did so aside, the GM’s brutal efficiency in sending away the Goodrow and Trouba contracts without being forced to retain any money stands as a testament to Drury’s doggedness in ridding his roster of unwanted financial commitments. It seems very likely that regardless of what he ends up doing, Drury will approach Zibanejad’s camp and ask whether he’d be willing to waive his no-move clause to potentially accommodate a trade.
Time will tell whether this late offensive burst by Zibanejad serves as proof to other teams that perhaps he has something left, which could be mined through a change of scenery and situation. There has to be at least some intrigue around the League about whether a top-six center could be had for at least a depressed return in trade capital, and perhaps retained salary from the Rangers if they’re desperate enough to move him.
Rangers usage of Mika Zibanejad may have played role in his malaise
After all, a case can be made that Zibanejad has been misused in recent seasons, with current coach Peter Laviolette and predecessor Gerard Gallant employing him as a defensive matchup center against other top pivots. Rather than attempting to get him away from tough adversaries by leveraging advantages like the last change on home ice, Laviolette and Gallant often left Zibanejad on against those types of opponents. The fact that the Rangers failed to obtain a center, such as Carolina’s Jordan Staal or the Winnipeg Jets’ Adam Lowry, to serve in that specialized role, led to Zibanejad being used for the purpose almost by default.
An example of that would Laviolette’s deployment of Zibanejad in a head-to-head battle with top Florida Panthers center Alexsander Barkov in the 2024 Eastern Conference Final. That occurred even during the three games at Madison Square Garden, where it could have been avoided. Zibanejad limited the 6-foot-3, 214-pound Barkov, one of the game’s great two-way players, to a goal and three assists in the series.
Zibanejad, however, was unable to generate any offense against the 2023-24 Selke Trophy Award winner as the best defensive forward in the NHL. He managed two assists when the Rangers fell to the Panthers in six games.
In the never-ending quest among the League’s personnel departments to find value, could the idea of a better role for Zibanejad whet the appetite for a GM to acquire him on the cheap?
Zibanejad’s closing charge certainly can’t hurt. Playing his way off the Rangers, who acquired him in one of the great steals in franchise history after he went on the develop into a star on Broadway, probably isn’t Zibanejad’s plan. Maybe the hot streak will convince the Rangers to hang onto him, hoping that 2024-25 was an anomaly for the player in a season that was a down one for essentially the entire team.
It seems more likely that the Rangers won’t have much of a choice but to keep him and wish for the best, thanks to Zibanejad’s contract. Still, demonstrating that he can still produce offensively, as Zibanejad has done in the waning days of the regular season, might do just enough to tip the scales in either direction.
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