The 2025-26 season cannot come soon enough for the Rangers, eager to make their comeback to playoff ranks and leave last season’s disaster in the past.
As they work to do so, however, the Blueshirts will have to face a tour of former players.
This situation is a consequence of their own path after the team plummeted in the standings early on last year, prompting the exit of multiple regular players in the first major lineup overhaul since the 2018 deadline revamp.
Tribute videos will be played on the Madison Square Garden jumbotron. Emotions will run high.
The Rangers’ former core will be dispersed throughout the league, evident in nearly every corner of the 82-game schedule that was released Wednesday afternoon.
Beginning on Opening Night, ex-assistant coach Dan Muse and the Penguins will venture to MSG.
That also means new Rangers head coach Mike Sullivan, who left Pittsburgh after 10 years this summer, will get to face his former team for the first time very early in the season.
He will also make his grand return to the Steel City just four days later, after the Rangers open the road schedule at Buffalo.
If Zac Jones makes the Sabres lineup out of training camp, the 24-year-old defenseman would be the first ex-Ranger from last season’s turmoil on the circuit.
He could get the first crack at the club he never quite fit into, which led to him becoming a free agent this summer — after the Rangers didn’t qualify him and he signed a one-year, two-way deal with the Sabres.
The Rangers could see Filip Chytil for the first time since they traded the Czech Center to the Canucks, when they head to Vancouver on Oct. 28 as part of a four-game swing out west.
Since he suffered another concussion after the trade, Chytil couldn’t play when the Canucks visited the Garden last season.
Chytil, who said he plans to be ready by September, is set to return to MSG on Dec. 16.
Just after visiting Chytil, the Rangers will see Kaapo Kakko and Ryan Lindgren in Seattle on Nov. 1 at the end of the western Canada swing.
Though Kakko had a strong start to his Kraken tenure, Lindgren will just be getting started after signing a four-year, $18 million deal as a free agent from Colorado.
K’Andre Miller and the Hurricanes will be at the Garden on Nov. 4 for a highly anticipated matchup, after the Rangers traded the No. 22 pick in 2018 to Carolina earlier this month.
Coming off a tough season, the 25-year-old blueliner will be looking to make a statement not only for his new club, but against his former one.
Dec. 15 is also sure to be a memorable one, considering both ex-captain Jacob Trouba and 13-year Ranger Chris Kreider will be stepping back into MSG for the first time when the Ducks come to town.
The Rangers already saw Trouba when they went to Anaheim last season, but the 31-year-old has not returned to the Garden since his tumultuous exit from the organization in early December.
Kreider, who was traded to Anaheim in June, is sure to be given a warm welcome back in New York.
A front-loaded schedule, which features 23 road games of the first 41, will lead into a second half that includes a seven-game home stand at the end of March into early April.
All four meetings with the Islanders are before the March 6 trade deadline.
All three meetings with the Devils are after the trade deadline.
The path back to Stanley Cup relevancy is set for the Rangers, with plenty of familiar faces to serve as frightful reminders and guide the way.
