\u201cThat\u2019s what he\u2019s capable of,\u201d Sullivan said after the game. \u201cI thought he was strong on pucks. He was hanging on pucks in the offensive zone. The goal he got was a goal-scorer\u2019s goal. But it was more than just that.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought he was around the net. He was winning puck battles. He was in the battle areas,\u201d Sullivan said. \u201cHe was challenging people by hanging onto pucks, and that\u2019s what he\u2019s capable of. He\u2019s a really good one-on-one player, and we\u2019ve been trying to encourage him to challenge people down under the hash marks and try to force people to take the puck away from him. He\u2019s big and strong with really good puck skills, and I thought tonight was one of his better games with respect to that.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"New](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/13-greeted-teammates-bench-scoring-116966177.jpg\")
Alexis Lafreni\u00e8re celebrates his goal during the Rangers\u2019 Dec. 7 loss to the Golden Knights. Robert Sabo for the NY Post<\/p>\n
The 24-year-old Lafreni\u00e8re entered with just two goals and one assist in his previous 12 games, but he factored in both Rangers goals in the second period.<\/p>\n
He set up Mika Zibanejad\u2019s game-tying score with a redirection in front of the net before firing in his seventh goal of the season four minutes later for a 2-1 lead.<\/p>\n
The Rangers returned Brennan Othmann to Hartford after the game on Saturday, allowing the 22-year-old to suit up for the Wolf Pack\u2019s game against Bridgeport that night. <\/p>\n
Jaroslav Chmelar was subsequently recalled.<\/p>\n
Chmelar appeared in his third NHL game Sunday night, replacing Taylor Raddysh on the right wing of the fourth line with Sam Carrick and Jonny Brodzinski.<\/p>\n
Left-shot defenseman Brandon Scanlin cleared waivers and was assigned to AHL Hartford. <\/p>\n
He had been rehabbing a lower-body injury since training camp.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\tRead the expert take on the Blueshirts\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
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\t\t\t\t\t\tThank you\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
With his assist on Artemi Panarin\u2019s third-period game-tying score Saturday afternoon, Zibanejad surpassed Ron Greschner for the seventh-most points in franchise history (611). <\/p>\n
The Swede rode a six-game point streak into Sunday\u2019s game (three goals, four assists), which is tied for the fifth-longest active streak among NHL skaters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This was the type of dynamic performance Rangers fans and coach Mike Sullivan have wanted to see from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":63980,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[21088,9,11,10,541,539,319,25552],"class_list":{"0":"post-63979","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-alexis-lafreniere","9":"tag-new-york","10":"tag-new-york-headlines","11":"tag-new-york-news","12":"tag-new-york-rangers","13":"tag-nhl","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-vegas-golden-knights"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63979","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63979"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63979\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}