{"id":880536,"date":"2026-10-13T06:24:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-13T06:24:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/880536\/"},"modified":"2026-10-13T06:24:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-13T06:24:09","slug":"will-cuylles-start-is-making-the-rangers-rethink-his-evolution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/880536\/","title":{"rendered":"Will Cuylle’s start is making the Rangers rethink his evolution"},"content":{"rendered":"

The two games captured it all for Will Cuylle. They served as a microcosm for the variety of roles he can fill \u2014 and thrive in \u2014 for the Rangers, and showcased the impact he can make, even if a path to the top six isn\u2019t as clear as it was at the start of last year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

There Cuylle was last Sunday, sending the Mammoth\u2019s Dylan Guenther into the boards and stepping up to fight when Jack McBain challenged him later on. And there the left winger was one week later, in the Blueshirts\u2019 6-2 win over the Canucks<\/a> on Sunday at the Garden, recording the fifth multi-goal game of his career with his first tallies of the season. It gave him five points through seven games, an early pace that\u2019d allow him to shatter his career best of 45 from 2023-24 and a blueprint to make that happen.\u00a0<\/p>\n

His pair of goals \u2014 which gave the Rangers five victories in seven games entering Tuesday\u2019s home match against the Lightning \u2014 also marked a first emergence of his scoring touch in his fifth season that could help lift his ceiling beyond the 20 goals from each of the last two years. They were just the second and third goals for his line at 5-on-5 play this season, a promising development for a third line tasked with relieving the pressure, both offensively and defensively, for the Rangers top six.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, I thought [Sunday] was good for our line,\u201d Cuylle said postgame Sunday. \u201cI thought for the most part we were down in their end. I think we\u2019ve been kinda building our game all year. Results haven\u2019t always come, but analytically getting a lot of chances, a lot of Grade A chances. So it\u2019s only a matter of time before they start going in.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Cuylle\u2019s first goal unfolded in the early minutes of the second period, when Noah Laba sent a pass to him in the neutral zone. Cuylle weaved around Linus Karlsson near the blue line and flicked a shot into the Canucks net. Then, with under five minutes remaining in the third, Cuylle crashed the net while on the rush and deposited an Eeli Tolvanen rebound past Canucks goalie Kevin Lankinen.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"NewNew York Rangers left wing Will Cuylle (50) celebrates with his teammates after scoring a goal during the third period against the Vancouver Canucks. Robert Sabo for NY Post<\/p>\n

But near the end of 2025-26, Cuylle didn\u2019t mince words when talking about his game. He had a \u201chigher expectation\u201d for himself moving forward, he told The Post\u2019s Mollie Walker<\/a> in March. He admitted that he had good stretches and poor stretches. Cuylle\u2019s physicality and production had blended together at times throughout the year, allowing him to hit the 20-goal threshold again, but it still left him knowing he could add more.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The 24-year-old opened training camp on a line with Laba at center and Tolvanen, and it\u2019s the only line that head coach Mike Sullivan has left intact to this point. Sunday marked the group\u2019s best expected goals number for the season \u2014 0.58, which led the Rangers forward combinations \u2014 and their best expected goals for percentage (65.63) since the home opener, according to Natural Stat Trick. In between, there were early low points, such as when they had a 9.99 expected goals for percentage in the Mammoth game and a 6.25 clip against the Red Wings, but that line, Sullivan said recently, is \u201ca responsible line\u201d that has filled the role the Rangers are looking for.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tRead the expert take on the Blueshirts\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSign up for Inside the Rangers, a weekly Sports+ exclusive.\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\tThank you\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Cuylle\u2019s individual production, too, has been at the center of that. He has at least one point in five of the Blueshirts\u2019 seven games this season. He leads the Rangers with 26 hits \u2014 Tye Kartye has the second most with 17 \u2014 and sat third in the NHL entering play Monday after finishing third and fourth for hits leaguewide the past two years.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And if Sunday\u2019s performance becomes a formula that Cuylle can keep replicating across an 84-game marathon, if his line can handle defensive-zone draws and consistently produce goals, it\u2019ll only help Cuylle continue to reset his Rangers ceiling.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI think Will, that\u2019s an important element of Will\u2019s game \u2014 the physicality that he brings,\u201d Sullivan said after the Mammoth game, when Cuylle fought for the 12th time in his NHL career. \u201cHe\u2019s such a great athlete. He skates so well. He finishes checks. He\u2019s hard on pucks. When he plays that way, he\u2019s hard to play against. He certainly makes us a better team.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The two games captured it all for Will Cuylle. They served as a microcosm for the variety of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":880537,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[4823,385,99,134324],"class_list":["post-880536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-new-york-rangers","tag-nhl","tag-sports","tag-will-cuylle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/880536","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=880536"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/880536\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/880537"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=880536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=880536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=880536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}