Rangers coach committed to help bring out best in Adam Fox
Mike Sullivan has many objectives for his first training camp and season as coach of the New York Rangers. His to-do list is not a short one. But right near the top is trying to put Adam Fox in the best possible position to succeed this season, after a frustrating 2024-25 campaign.
Of course, it’s not necessarily news that a coach desires to maximize the potential of each player on the roster. Much less one of the best players in the sport. That’s simply good business for the team, the players, and the coach.
But it’s clear already that elevating Fox to be the absolute best he can be is a priority for Sullivan.
“One of the things we talked about in the offseason was how do we find a way to help Adam Fox capture his very best game?,” Sullivan stated Thursday following the first practices of camp.
The reason why this is front and center on the coach’s mind is that Fox wasn’t at his best last season. Then again, that can be said about pretty much the entirety of the Rangers roster. It was a well-documented dysfunctional and dismal year all around, among the most disappointing in Rangers history. So bad was it that the Rangers became just the fourth team in NHL history to miss the Stanley Cup Playoffs one year after winning the Presidents’ Trophy.
It’s not like Fox was terrible. His underlying metrics were best on the team, per Natural Stat Trick. And he tied for sixth among all League defensemen with 51 assists and finished ninth with 61 points.
But Fox wasn’t quite the dominant player he’d been previously. And New York’s power play, quarterbacked by Fox, went from elite to, yeah, not so much. The Rangers power play dropped from third best in 2023-24 (26.4 percent) in the NHL to 28th overall last season (17.6 percent).
Fox also took quite a bit of heat for underperforming at the 4 Nations Faceoff, playing for Sullivan on Team USA. His ice time dipped as he appeared to struggle with the pace of play.
But that doesn’t mean Sullivan is not a fan nor undervalues Fox’s importance to the Rangers.
“I think ‘Foxy’ is an elite defenseman. I think he’s in the prime of his career, he’s still a young guy (27 years old),” Sullivan said. “I think he has high expectations for himself, as he should. He’s a Norris Trophy winner (in 2020-21). That doesn’t happen by accident. He’s an elite talent.”
As for last season, Sullivan is of the mind that it could be a blessing for Fox moving forward.
“I think Foxy has a different perspective after going through a challenging year last year like they did. And I think that’s offered him a certain perspective but also provided a lot of motivation and inspiration for him to take control over his own circumstance.”
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Rangers hope Valdislav Gavrikov is ‘ideal partner’ for Adam Fox
So, Sullivan knows that in order for him to help turn around the Rangers fortunes this season, he must find ways to bring out the absolute best in their No. 1 defenseman.
The Rangers coach knows Fox “worked extremely hard in the offseason” and is extremely motivated. But what can he do to help bring out the best in Fox?
“So we had the conversation, do we have the ideal partner for him? Because if we can find an ideal partner for him where he can build and develop chemistry that would suggest that would set him up for success,” Sullivan explained. “I think that’s an important element to it.”
Enter Vladislav Gavrikov. The Rangers signed the elite shutdown defensemen to a seven-year, $49 million contract in free agency July 1. Though Sullivan won’t commit just yet to a top pair of Gavrikov and Fox, it sure makes a whole lot of sense. And it was no surprise that they were paired on Day 1 of camp.
“When [Rangers general manager Chris Drury] signed Gavrikov, that’s a guy we felt potentially could be a great partner for Foxy. They could have complementary skill sets,” Sullivan explained. “He’s a very good defender, he’s big (6-foot-3, 220 pounds) and strong, he can control the net front. He’s predictable and reliable, which I think is an important element of being a good defense partner. That should allow Foxy to act on his instincts a little bit and give him some latitude to jump into the offense and play to his strengths.
“So, we’re going to explore that without a doubt. But you never really know until you out it on the ice and see what happens.”
Fox played alongside numerous partners last season, in part because his longtime partner Ryan Lindgren was injured early on and then traded to the Colorado Avalanche in March.
“He’s an elite defenseman and I think everyone wants to play with a guy like that,” Fox said Thursday. “He’s pretty similar to what I’m used to playing with someone reliable. You know what you’re getting when he’s out there. He’s a smart player, too, so I’m sure that chemistry will come a little more.”
It’s not just Drury, Sullivan, and Fox who are taken with Gavrikov.
“Gavy … he’s a spectacular defenseman,” alternate captain Vincent Trocheck said. “He’s going to be a really, really big piece to this team. And I think he’s going to be huge for Foxy. He’s great defensively. He can skate … makes a great first pass, and I just think he’s going to help bolster our D corps.”
There are other ways, less obvious ways, Sullivan and his staff — notably assistant David Quinn, who was Rangers coach when Fox entered the League and won the Norris Trophy — will try to bring out the best in Fox this season. But getting him comfortable with a stud partner on the ice is a great start.
Because if the Rangers can get the best version of Fox, it’s going to be easier to be the best version of themselves as a team, too.
“We believe that he is an elite defenseman in this league and it’s our job to help him catch his very best game and that’s what we’re going to try and do.”
