Rangers scratch Mika Zibanejad for missing team meeting

The New York Rangers will be without one of their most productive forwards on Monday night, as head coach Mike Sullivan told a group of reporters including Vince Z. Mercogliano of The Athletic that Mika Zibanejad would be a healthy scratch after he missed a team meeting.

“He feels terribly,” Sullivan told Mercogliano. “The one thing about Mika is he’s an honest person. He’s a great human being and he takes responsibility for it.”

Sullivan also explained that the “logistical challenges” that New York City presents were a contributing factor to Zibanejad being late for the meeting.

Zibanejad, a 32-year-old veteran who has been a core member of the Rangers since he was acquired from Ottawa in 2016, has 11 goals and 14 assists for 25 points in 33 games played so far this year. He has 10 power play points, and he’s skated to a minus-7 rating on an average of 20:26 of time on ice per game.

Without Zibanejad for Monday’s contest against the Anaheim Ducks, the Rangers will likely move either Noah Laba or Will Cuylle into the top six forward group.

The Rangers are in the midst of a brutal stretch of their schedule. New York hosts Anaheim on Monday night before welcoming Vancouver to Madison Square Garden on Tuesday. Then, they’ll kick off another run of three games in four nights when they visit St. Louis on Thursday before hosting Philadelphia on Saturday and visiting Nashville on Sunday.

New York owns a 16-13-4 record that has them in seventh place in a tightly-packed Metropolitan Division. Despite an up-and-down start to their year, the Rangers are only two points behind the Boston Bruins for the Eastern Conference’s second wild card spot as the majority of teams in the East have yet to build much separation from the pack.