MIAMI — Even with a beach 3 ¹/₂ miles away, the Rangers remained undefeated outdoors.
An unexpectedly dominant 5-1 win over the Panthers in the 2026 Winter Classic on Friday night at loanDepot park improved the Blueshirts to 6-0-0 in outdoor games since they first competed in one 14 years ago.
Successfully defending the franchise record the way they did was one thing.
The Rangers’ unrelenting effort against the defending back-to-back Stanley Cup champions in such a high-profile NHL event, however, was the real stepping stone in a season that hasn’t had many.
“We talked about it, about a fresh start here,” said Mika Zibanejad, who spearheaded the win with three goals — for the first Winter Classic hat trick — and two assists. “Got a couple days as a team, with families and friends and just enjoy this moment. I thought we did a good job with that and really focused when it came to game time. We’re hoping this can be a start to something good for us.”
With a victory in the third-warmest outdoor contest in NHL history at 61 degrees, the Rangers snapped a three-game losing skid.
The Rangers showed the beachgoers how it’s done up north in the first outdoor game in Florida.
Fending off five of the Panthers’ six power plays, the Rangers also blocked 27 shots through 60 minutes. They may have been limited to six shots on goal in each of the first two periods, but the Rangers consistently generated high-quality opportunities that they were able to capitalize on.
The power play also scored two goals for just the fifth time this season.
They got to stick it to the Panthers on national television. They got to do it in front of a sold-out and split crowd of 36,153.
Feel-good games aren’t always enough in a season like the one the Rangers are having. This was one the team should hang its hat on. One that should fuel confidence and serve as a building block.
“The energy around an event like this, and a lot of the activity around an event like this, sometimes, if you’re not careful, the unintended consequence is you lose sight of the fact that these are two real important points in the standings,” head coach Mike Sullivan said. “And that was something that we tried to have a discussion with our players about and just making sure that when the puck dropped that everybody understands what’s on the line here and the impact that it could potentially have. And how important it was for us to stop the bleeding, so to speak. I thought the guys did a great job. We competed hard.”
After withstanding the Panthers early push in the first period, the Rangers scored twice in the span of 64 seconds.
Once the visitors earned their first, they converted just 40 seconds into the man advantage. Alexis Lafrenière hit Zibanejad crashing the net, which tied the Swedish center for the most power-play goals in Rangers history with 116.
The goal put some serious jump in the Rangers, who struck again to double their score shortly after.
Panarin flung the puck from the top of the zone and through traffic for his 15th goal of the season.
Just 58 seconds into the second period, the Rangers made it a 3-0 game. Vincent Trocheck slipped through the neutral zone, but still managed to dish to Lafrenière in transition. The 2020 first-overall pick then found Zibanejad once again for his second goal of the evening.
Florida didn’t get on the scoreboard until 2:20 into the final frame. With Jonny Brodzinski in the box for tripping, Sam Reinhart scored on the power play to cut the Rangers’ lead to two.
Panarin later sniped the Rangers second power-play goal of the game before Zibanejad completed his hat trick with an empty-net score.
“We played the way we wanted to play,” Panarin said. “We played the way we discussed before the game. Hopefully, in the future, we’re going to play the same way.”
