Rangers Fall to the Flyers in Overtime After Returning From the Olympic Break

By Daniel Feuerstein | February 27th, 2026 | New York, NY

Great start, but a lousy finish

The New York Rangers returned to action on the ice at Madison Square Garden as they hosted the Philadelphia Flyers. They got off to a roaring start and dominated in the first period. After a strong start to the second, they reverted to their old ways, allowing the Flyers to chip the lead away slowly. When it got to overtime, that’s when they were beaten for the second point and lost at home as the final score was three to two. Before the game began, the Rangers honored their Olympians who were a part of the Gold Medal USA Team. President and General Manager Chris Drurywas the assistant GM under Bill Guerin, David Quinn was the Assistant Coach, along with Head Coach Mike Sullivan. The two players who won the Gold Medal were Rangers Captain J.T. Miller and Vincent Trocheck.

Game Recap:

The Rangers got on the board in the first period when Will Borgan had the puck at center ice, made a strong pass to Sam Carrick, who just entered the blue line. Made a quick backhanded pass to Taylor Raddysh along the far boards, took a hit, and coughed up the puck, but the momentum went back to Carrick. All he did was flip a quick wrist shot toward the net, and somehow Samuel Ersson opened the five-hole, and the puck easily went through him for the first goal of the game at 9:56 of the first period.

The Rangers continued their hard skating at the beginning of the second period. They worked the puck down low in the near corner when Vincent Trocheck sent the puck toward Will Cuylle from just behind the net. He made a nice backhanded pass out front toward Alexis Lafreniere, who got loose and went toward the front of the net and took a quick shot past Ersson at 1:23. Lafreniere was looking to pick up the slack after the Rangers traded Artemi Panarin to the Kings.

The Flyers pulled one back on the power play. It was about to expire when the Flyers kept the puck inside the Rangers’ zone. Owen Tippet was along the near boards and kept it alive. made a quick pass to Noah Cates, then he made a hard cross-ice pass to Matvei Michkov, who was all alone at the far post and slammed home the puck at 10:25 of the second period on the power play. No one was near Mitchkov as he put himself in prime position to convert his chance.

At the start of the third period, the Flyers wasted no time in quickly tying the game. After Travis Konecny blocked the shot at the top of the Flyers’ zone, Trevor Zegras picked up the puck and started a two-on-one down the near side. He held the puck in a cocked position, and when he just got inside the slot and near the faceoff circle, he ripped a hard, high shot over the right shoulder of Igor Shesterkin to tie the game at 39 seconds of the third period.

In the overtime period, the Rangers were on a power play, desperately trying to slam the puck inside the net. But Ersson and the Flyers kept it out until that one moment when Sean Couturier took the puck from the scrum at the Flyers’ crease and led Michkov with a pass down the near side. He just got away from a Rangers defender and snapped a low shot towards the short side between Shesterkin’s pad and the near post and won the game with his second goal of the night and the extra point at 2:10 of overtime.

Post Game Reaction: Mike Sullivan

“It’s a good start, and then it gave me a nap a little bit as it went on. I thought five on five, we were pretty good, you know. We had a great start to the game. The second period was all special teams. You know, what we gave up was on the penalty kill. You know, I didn’t think the penalty kill was particularly strong tonight. Um, it was pretty good in the third, but… the second period, it wasn’t. A lot of the details weren’t there, the reeds, things of that nature. I didn’t think the special teams on either side were very good. You know, if power play didn’t execute, we made poor decisions. And our penalty kill needs to be better.”

Igor Shesterkin and Adam Fox returned to the lineup after they suffered their injuries in the Utah Mammouth game at Madison Square Garden after the Winter Classic victory at Loan Depot Park against the Florida Panthers. Shesterkin looked to be on his game and made several strong pad saves, and flashed his blocker when he needed to. It was great to see Fox back on the ice after such a long time being away while on the injury list.

“‘I thought it was okay. I think they’re capable of another level. You know, I mean, Foxy’s missed a lot of hockey, so. You know, it’s going to take him some time to… to get into you know, the game. You know, the game speed, the game timing, things of that nature. He’s missed so much time. I would anticipate Foxy getting better with each game that he plays. He’s just missed so much time. It seemed like you were working him into the PK a little bit. I know he wasn’t necessarily playing the PK a lot before he got hurt.”

VINVENT TROCHECK: Extended his point streak against the Flyers to four-straight games (2G-3A). He has notched at least one point in six of his last 10 games (1G-9A), and his 37 points this season rank second among Rangers skaters.

ALEXIS LAFRENIERE: Scored his 13th goal of the season, tied for the third most goals on the Blueshirts this season. He has recorded four points (3G-1A) through his last three games.

The Rangers are back at Madison Square Garden to face the Pittsburgh Penguins in a Saturday Afternoon game on ABC at 12:30 PM

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