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Marcus Pettersson knows Mike Sullivan’s structure and philosophy better than most with the Rangers, since the defenseman spent parts of seven seasons with the Penguins from December 2018 through February 2025 after Sullivan had already arrived and won a pair of Stanley Cups in Pittsburgh.
And in the early portion of this season, Pettersson has noticed this iteration of the Rangers starting to adopt a similar identity to what those Penguins teams had with Sullivan as head coach, he told The Post before a 1-0 loss to the Blue Jackets in overtime where the Blueshirts largely flashed the same principles of checking and forechecking while earning their 13th point of the young season.
“[Identity is] always the word on people’s mouths, I feel like, early in the year where it’s — some teams find it early, some teams are searching for that identity,” Pettersson, who was acquired in exchange for a top-10 protected first-round pick in the 2030 draft, said Saturday. “I think when you look throughout our lineup, our system and everything, I think everybody’s really bought in so far this season. … We’re a really good checking team. I feel like, and if we can do that well, it’s gonna be tough to beat us every night.”
With five years remaining on his contract, Pettersson, 30, will likely be part of shaping the Rangers blue line into the future, and outside of a pair of giveaways in Saturday’s game, he’s mostly been impressive with Sean Durzi on a revamped second pairing. Pettersson has collected a pair of assists offensively too while settling into a critical role on the Blueshirts penalty-kill unit.
His current group of Rangers teammates, who are now 6-3-1 through their opening 10 games, and his former Penguins teams contained different types of players, he said, but there are still some similarities in how they play. They both had centers who could read the game. They both had speed. They both paired that with checking that in turn has allowed the Blueshirts to create opportunities for their most dynamic players.
They’ve learned how Sullivan wants to play away from the puck, Pettersson said, and have witnessed how that ultimately creates offense. Defensively, he added, both teams understood what puck movement means too.
“It doesn’t mean that you’re highlight reel, doing spin-o-rama, wheeling outside the zone every shift,” Pettersson said. “It’s effective puck moving where you get the pucks to our game-breakers up there.”
The power play was supposed to be a definitive strength of the Rangers this season, but instead, through their opening 10 games, their other special teams unit has emerged as one of the league’s best — and that, given their reliance on 24-year-old goaltender Dylan Garand with Igor Shesterkin out for the season, has been crucial.
In their 1-0 loss to the Blue Jackets on Saturday, the Rangers killed all three of their penalties, including one by Will Cuylle at the end of regulation that forced them to operate at 4-on-3 for the first 1:27 of overtime.
They entered play Sunday with a unit that has killed all but two of their 31 penalties, hasn’t allowed a goal on the road and sat in a tie for the second-best success rate in the NHL at 93.5 percent — which is even with the Hurricanes and trails just the Maple Leafs’ 96.4 percent.
“They’ve been aggressive,” Sullivan said. “There’s been a lot of collective effort when they are aggressive. It’s cooperative pressure. … They’re doing a lot of the little things, the thankless jobs. They’re winning faceoffs, they’re getting clears, they’re blocking shots, but they’re making good reads.”