2025 Rangers Season Previews: Carson Soucy

From the time the New York Rangers collectively quit on the 2024-25 season in the wake of The Memo circulated by Chris Drury putting forward some of the most recognizable names on his roster as trade bait, the biggest date on the calendar for the Rangers was March 7—the NHL trade deadline. The deadline, and the lead up thereto, saw major names depart from New York: Kaapo Kakko, Filip Chytil, Ryan Lindgren, Jimmy Vesey, Reilly Smith, and Jacob Trouba. J.T. Miller, long rumored to be returning to New York, was the only major acquisition. The rest of the returns for these players was a combination of futures, draft picks, and mid-level NHL roster players (Urho Vaakanainen, Will Borgen, Juuso Parssinen, Calvin de Haan, et.al.).

Among the final deals Chris Drury swung prior to the trade deadline was sending San Jose's 2025 third round draft pick to the Vancouver Canucks for defenseman Carson Soucy. It was a deal that drew a collective, "Huh?" from fans and Blueshirt Banter writers alike. The Rangers already had their fair share depth defensemen. Beyond that, Soucy had been no great shakes in Vancouver.

So, why did Chris Drury acquire Soucy? And what are the plans for him this coming season?

Previous Performance

Prior to the deal that sent him to New York, Soucy played mostly with Noah Juulsen and Tyler Myers in Vancouver. The results were, as they say, "not great, Bob." In 259 minutes with Myers the pair posted a 45.19 xGF%, and in about 295 minutes together with Juulsen they posted a 42.01 xGF% (according to NaturalStatTrick). Those were the two worst expected goals for percentages of any Canucks defensive pair with at least 150 minutes played together.

It bears mentioning that the Vancouver Canucks were, to use a very technical term from social science, a hot mess last season. And they were coached by Rick Tocchet, who was let go following the season and who remains one the most inexplicably overvalued coaching commodities in the NHL.

After Soucy's arrival in New York, he mostly slotted in along side Adam Fox. In a little over 146 minutes together on the Rangers, the Fox-Soucy pairing posted a 63.28 xGF%. That's good! Here, however, is where we have to mention that Adam Fox (despite what you may have read from people on Twitter who likely can't tie their own shoes) is very, very good at hockey. The only two other Adam Fox-led pairs that had at least as much TOI together as Fox and Soucy were Fox and K'Andre Miller (64.69 xGF%) and Fox and Ryan Lindgren (50.02 xGF%).

This means we can say this much: Soucy was at least better than the corpse of Ryan Lindgren, with whom Fox was still able to post a (slightly) above 50 percent expected goal share. The relative success of any of these pairing is, however, mostly attributable to Adam Fox being an elite NHL defenseman (again, despite whatever inanity you might have read online).

For perspective, the pairing with the second most ice time together that Soucy was a part of was him skating a shade more than 63 minutes with Zac Jones. In that time they posted a paltry 37.49 xGF%. Two caveats: This is not a lot of ice time together, so take it with a grain of salt; and, the 2024-25 New York Rangers were a dumpster fire defensively, from Peter Laviolette's man-on-man system on down. So take it all with a healthy shaker of salt.

One of the things we know with a high level of certainty going into this new season, however, is that Carson Soucy, or anyone not named Vladislav Gavrikov, isn't going to have a much of an opportunity to play opposite Adam Fox.

With this knowledge in mind, we should take a look a little further back in Soucy's performance. So hop in the DeLorean with me and travel back through the previous few seasons. In the 2023-24 campaign with Vancouver, Soucy mustered a 47.14 xGF% in 642 minutes together with Myers, and a 42.13 xGF% in 304 minutes together with Juulson.

The more relevant season, however, might be 2022-23. In some ways, this seems like ages ago. But it's relevant for one very particular reason: Soucy was frequently paired with a familiar name in Will Borgen for the Seattle Kraken. In 470 minutes played together, the Soucy-Borgen pairing 47.20 xGF%, which isn't great in that it's below 50 percent, but it's also not terrible. (For what it's worth, Soucy also played about 437 minutes with Justin Schultz and they mustered a 49.62 xGF%.)

How relevant is this data from three seasons ago? It's hard to say. I'll let you draw your own conclusions about that. But we do know that Borgen and Soucy have played together before and were at least passable as a defensive pairing.

Expectations

The main value that Soucy brings to the 2025-26 New York Rangers is his value vis-à-vis his contract. He is entering the final year of a 3 year, $3.25 million AAV deal. This cap hit number came in for a fair bit a scorn when Soucy was acquired and when his early returns did not pass the eye test for most people. But, in light of some of the contracts doled out to free agents this offseason (::cough cough:: 4 years, $4.5 million for Cody Ceci ::cough cough::) the contract/cap hit looks like a good deal.

The biggest question is, with whom will Soucy play them majority of this year?

If we want to take defensive handedness into account, including our expectations of who the Rangers are comfortable using on their off-hand, that narrows it down. Soucy is a left shot, and once we get past the Fox-Gavrikov pairing, the Rangers have only right-shot defensemen in Will Borgen, Braden Schneider, Scott Morrow, and Urho Vaakanainen. Knowing that of those players Braden Schneider is the one the Rangers seem most comfortable deploying on their offhand, that suggests the defensive pairings likely to be iced by the Rangers to start the season are:

Gavrikov-Fox
Soucy-Borgen
Schneider-Morrow/Vaakanainen

The Gavrikov-Fox pair should be elite. After that? It's a whole lot of question marks.

If Soucy and Borgen can be at least as good as they were together in 2022-23 with the Kraken, you can probably live with that as a second pairing, especially with expectations that Mike Sullivan (a much better coach than Peter Laviolette, or then Kraken head coach Dave Hakstol from when Soucy and Borgen were last paired together) will improve the team defense considerably, if not only by virtue of it being next to impossible to be as bad as they were under Laviolette.

If Soucy and Borgen can't be at least that good together? Well, then the Rangers are going to have a precipitous drop off as soon as that top pairing steps off the ice.

Predictions

The combination of handedness concerns and the history Soucy and Borgen have together will result in those two playing the majority of the season together as the second pair.

My prediction for Soucy and that pairing? They'll be OK, probably hovering around a 50 xGF%. And for Soucy himself, I'd expect his line to come in somewhere around his historical season average: 5G-15A-20P.

Yes, I know that's not going to get anyone excited. Ideally you'd want your second pair to perform a little better than that. But consider two things. First, the Rangers are in a transitional season. The tire fire that was last year has reset current expectations for this team. Unlike last year when we were coming into the season harboring Stanley Cup contending expectations, the bar is lower this year. A veteran second pair that is OK on a team that should being playing much better structural hockey is an improvement on where this team was. And, they aren't committed to Soucy beyond his current season.

Second, consider again the alternatives. Would you have been more enthused if it were Cody Ceci instead of Soucy? Or Brian Dumoulin? Hell, the corpse of Ryan Lindgren got 4 years, $4 million AAV from Seattle, and we're all glad the Rangers have no part of that.

Again, if you're not excited by any of this, that's fine. I'm not saying you should be. But even in the worst case scenario, it would be hard for the defense to be worse than last season. And Soucy's contract expires after this year. He has everything in the world to play for.