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The Rangers begin the 2025-26 NHL season with a showdown against the Pittsburgh Penguins.

The game is rife with narratives, but the most notable storyline is that the contest will pit Rangers head coach Mike Sullivan against his former team right out of the gate.

Sullivan coached the Penguins to back-to-back Stanley Cups during his 10-season tenure, but Pittsburgh is now in the beginning stages of a rebuild, and Sullivan understandably didn’t want to be a part of that process.

A lot of ink has been spilled this summer about how the Penguins are the only team in the NHL that “isn’t trying to win” this season, but that does

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