The Rangers hit the mark with their on-ice ceremony honoring Mika Zibanejad ahead of his 1,000th NHL game Monday night.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Once the puck was dropped on the Madison Square Garden ice, however, the Blueshirts struggled to hit the mark on anything.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A 2-1 loss to the team that traded Zibanejad to New York on July 18, 2016, the Senators, was the result.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Rangers\u2019 measly nine shots on goal matched a franchise low that dates back over 70 years.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Senators, already without two of their top four defensemen (Jake Sanderson and Nick Jensen), lost two blueliners to injury during the game and still had little difficulty containing the Rangers\u2019 lowly offense.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not that we didn\u2019t have a good night, we just got outcompeted,\u201d said captain J.T. Miller, who was held to zero shots on goal in the Rangers\u2019 25th loss in 34 games at home. \u201cThat\u2019s the part that\u2019s hard to live with that stuff. Like I mentioned, looking inward at yourself, you\u2019re just not doing enough. We don\u2019t do enough. Today you should have a fire lit under your ass to go play for your teammate. A guy that feels like a cornerstone of the organization.\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"Ottawa](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/ottawa-senators-left-wing-warren-124288792.jpg\")
Senators left wing Warren Foegele celebrates with Ottawa Senators left wing Fabian Zetterlund after Foegele scores a goal during the second period at Madison Square Garden in New York, New York, USA, Monday, March 23, 2026. JASON SZENES FOR THE NEW YORK POST<\/p>\n
\u201cWe go out and have four [shots] through two [periods]. At home, a place where we haven\u2019t been desperate enough this season. That doesn\u2019t sit well.\u201d<\/p>\n
After a moving tribute video narrated by Zibanejad\u2019s wife, Irma, fellow members of the leadership group showered the longest-tenured Ranger and his family with hugs and forms of appreciation from the organization.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Gifts included a trip to Greece for the whole family, a mini silver stick for his daughter, Ella, and a custom-engraved silver hockey stick for Zibanejad to commemorate the 1,000-game milestone.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The heartwarming ceremony bled into a stiff opening 20 minutes for the Rangers, who have soiled themselves in front of their home crowd on an egregious number of occasions this season.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Senators got a power-play goal from Shane Pinto and hit two posts before the home team even put one puck on net.\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"New](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/new-york-rangers-mika-zibanejad-124283868.jpg\")
Mika Zibanejad waves to the fans as he is honored for his 1000th career game before the first period at Madison Square Garden i JASON SZENES FOR THE NEW YORK POST<\/p>\n
It was Juuso P\u00e4rssinen, playing in his first game since March 12 in Winnipeg, who finally recorded the Rangers\u2019 first shot on goal with 6:11 left in the first period.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Rangers didn\u2019t get another until they earned a power play later in the frame.<\/p>\n
P\u00e4rssinen then flipped the puck over the glass \u2014 the first of two such bench minors committed by the Rangers \u2014 to ensure his team finished the first shorthanded.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Rangers could only funnel two more pucks at Ottawa goalie James Reimer over the next 20 minutes, finishing with a mere nine on the night.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Four shots through two periods represented the fewest for a Rangers team since 1965-66, when the NHL started tracking shots per period. The last time the Rangers posted that few shots on goal in a game was on Dec. 11, 1955 against the Red Wings.\u00a0<\/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
While Conor Sheary got the Rangers on the board just over seven minutes into the final frame, the equalizer never came.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s disappointing because I feel like we\u2019re not controlling what we can to set our team up for success,\u201d head coach Mike Sullivan said. \u201cI just think we lacked anticipation, on both sides of the puck\u2026We didn\u2019t win pucks. So we ended up spending a lot of time in our end zone for the first period, for sure. I thought the second period, the first seven minutes of the second period, we had a good push. And then for the next, I think, seven of the next 13 minutes, we were in the penalty box\u2026 I don\u2019t think we\u2019re playing the game with enough pace.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Rangers hit the mark with their on-ice ceremony honoring Mika Zibanejad ahead of his 1,000th NHL game…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":542283,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[11558,4823,385,1319,99],"class_list":["post-542282","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-mika-zibanejad","tag-new-york-rangers","tag-nhl","tag-ottawa-senators","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542282","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=542282"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542282\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/542283"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=542282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=542282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=542282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}