New York Rangers veteran forward Mika Zibanejad was benched for Monday night’s game against the Anaheim Ducks for missing a team meeting, head coach Mike Sullivan confirmed.
“Mika understands the importance of the rules that we all expect of one another,” Sullivan said (h/t The Athletic). “He feels terribly. The one thing about Mika is he’s an honest person. He’s a great human being, and he takes responsibility for it.”
As for why he missed the meeting, Sullivan said there were “logistical challenges” that New York City presents.
The timing of Zibanejad’s benching does present obvious questions. Monday night provided the return of his long-time teammate and one of his very best friends, Chris Kreider, for his first game back at Madison Square Garden after being traded by the Blueshirts to Anaheim during the offseason.
Kreider scored 326 goals during his 13-year stay with the Rangers, which ranks third in franchise history.
I felt like it was coming. It wasn’t out of the blue,” Zibanejad said about the Kreider trade back in September. “I’m not going to stand here and lie; it’s a part of us now. It was tough. It’s an adjustment. But as a human being, I’m not going to push those feelings away. I’m going to accept that and accept that it’s my longest linemate, my longest teammate that I had in my career. It’s one of my best friends. It’s weird not to see him come through these doors. I’m happy as long as he’s happy. Just because we’re not teammates anymore doesn’t mean that we’re not friends.”
Even without Kreider, Zibanejad’s production is coming around after scoring just 20 goals in 2024-25. Across 33 games, he has 11 goals with 14 assists, though he is a minus-7 for a Rangers team that entered Monday night’s action in seventh place out of the eight-team Metropolitan Division.
