Rangers star center Mika Zibanejad has been feeling the heat from many fans after the Rangers were bounced from the Eastern Conference final against the Florida Panthers.
Zibanejad had a down year compared to previous seasons as he is the top centre of the team, he is expected to score many of the goals. The Rangers struggled to score five on five throughout most of the year and relied heavily on their power play to push themselves into the playoffs.
He was front and centre for those goal droughts as the narrative points to him scoring goals for the team.
«I feel like every three, four weeks, we have a conversation about me not scoring five-on-five goals and things like that,» Zibanejad said last week after cleaning out his locker at the MSG Training Center in Tarrytown. «And why is that? It's because the expectation is for me to score.»
The 31-year-old played sixteen playoff games and managed to only score three goals with 13 assists for 16 points and is a + 1. Despite being appointed game, the onus on Zibanejad is to get more goals than this.'
During the year, he played 81 games, scoring 26 goals with 46 assists for 72 points and was a + 15. That is a sharp contrast compared to what he did the year before which was 82 games played with 39 goals scored and 91 points and a + 25.
Even though the Rangers put together a marvelous season and went three rounds to the playoffs, there's a sense that there could have been more done, and the team could have gone to the Stanley Cup final.
It's likely he will work on his game during the summer and be ready for training camp in September as the Rangers hoped to replicate a better season than this.
