Mike Sullivan's first year with Rangers could not have gone any worse

The New York Rangers' 2024-25 season was a bad one, considering they missed the playoffs a year after making it to the Eastern Conference Finals. Even with questions across the state of the roster, the Rangers believed hiring Mike Sullivan as head coach would help turn the team around. It's understanding why the Rangers would believe that, as Sullivan was a two-time Stanley Cup champion head coach. Perhaps he could get the most out of the team and bring them back to the playoffs.

Instead, the Rangers are dead-last in the Eastern Conference. After the disastrous 2024-25 season, this campaign is even worse. Look no further than their recent loss to the Ottawa Senators, where they only had 10 shots on goal against a Senators team with just four healthy defenseman available. That's as low as it could get for the Rangers, but with still more than 10 games left in the season, they have a chance to top themselves.

Meanwhile, the Penguins are in the thick of the playoff hunt, sitting in third in the Metropolitan Division entering Wednesday. For Sullivan, seeing his former team thrive immediately after leaving them has to sting.

MIke Sullivan sinking with Rangers, while Penguins soaring without him

During a recent episode of The Sheet with Jeff Marek, the host an ESPN's Greg Wyshynski both talked about Sullivan's decision to leave the Penguins to join the Rangers, considering New York is in last place, while Pittsburgh is thriving.

"Has there been a day in the last five months where Mike Sullivan didn't regret his decision in the National Hockey League? Obviously Mike's feeling pretty good about life having secured a gold medal for the United States. But he clearly chose to dive into a pool of rebuilding that he swore he didn't want to be a part of with Pittsburgh," said Wyshynski. "And meanwhile Pittsburgh looks rejuvenated in a way they might not have been had he still been there, but it's clear that Pittsburgh and Kyle Dubas have a better plan in place than do Chris Drury and the New York Rangers. That's indisputable right now."

This offseason, it felt as though the Rangers won the lottery. Sullivan, after taking over the team during the 2015-16 season and bringing them back-to-back Stanley Cup wins, reached a mutual agreement with the Penguins to part ways. The Penguins were coming off of a 2024-25 season in which they missed the playoffs after going 34-36-12.

Meanwhile, the Penguins looked to the Rangers and hired former Peter Laviolette assistant coach Dan Muse to be their new bench boss. It was a decision that seemingly came out of nowhere, and given where they finished last season, experts and fans believed this was a Penguins team destined to be in the running for the first overall pick.

Instead, as of this writing, the Penguins are 35-20-16 with 86 points through 71 games. While Sidney Crosby is unsurprisingly their most productive player, Muse has managed to get defenseman Erik Karlsson to turn the corner. After posting 56 points and 53 points through 82 game stretches the past two seasons, Karlsson has 54 points through 66 games. And, unsurprisingly, the Penguins are one of the best penalty kill teams in the league, as that had been an area of Muse's expertise when serving as an assistant under Laviolette in New York. The Penguins have a 82.9 penalty kill percentage, which is the third-best in hockey entering March 25.

As for the Rangers, their plan was to try and win with the roster currently constructed heading into the season. That, and hope a superstar would hit free agency next summer for them to sign. Instead, there is no star available in free agency, and the Rangers nosedived off the proverbial cliff. It has led the Rangers into a retool, with the team trading the likes of Artemi Panarin, Carson Soucy, and Sam Carrick ahead of the deadline. This offseason, it's likely other players could be on the move, such as center Vincent Trocheck or defenseman Braden Schneider.

The only real solace the Rangers and Sullivan can take is that they could land one of the top two selections in the upcoming NHL Draft, which would give them the chance to pick potential game-changing prospects in Gavin McKenna or Ivar Stenberg.

With the regular season mercifully almost over, the start to the Sullivan era could not have gotten off to a worse start. What makes matters worse is that a former Rangers assistant coach is potentially on the verge of leading a rival team into the playoffs.