2025 Rangers Season Previews: Taylor Raddysh

This article is part of an ongoing series of Rangers Season Previews, taking a close look at what we can, and should, expect from each member of the 2025-26 New York Rangers. To read other articles in this series, go here.

This is one of the few 2025 Season Previews of a player who is completely new to the New York Rangers in 2025-26. And like the biggest name new addition to the roster—Vladislav Gavrikov—we pretty much knew the moment Taylor Raddysh signed where he'd be playing.

Similar to how I described the acquisition of Carson Soucy at the 2025 trade deadline, the Raddysh signing drew a collective "huh?" from many quarters of Rangerstown. If there's one thing the Rangers have it's a burgeoning collection of middle-to-bottom six forwards. Some of them, like Brett Berard, are destined to stay there for their whole careers. Some, like Brennan Othmann, are trying this season to prove they belong consistently higher up in the lineup.

But, since the Rangers certainly had enough players to fill the lower part of their lineup already, Raddysh's signing is a clear indication that he's not just here as a depth piece. He's here to play.

So what can we expect from Taylor Raddysh this year?

Previous Performance

A second round pick of the Tampa Bay Lightning in 2016, Raddysh made his debut for Tampa in the 2021-22 season. He played 53 games for the Lightning before being shipped to the Chicago Blackhawks in the Brandon Hagel trade. In his first full season in Chicago, Raddysh put up 20 goals and 17 assists for 37 points on a very, very bad Blackhawks team. His second full season in the Windy City left a lot more to be desired, however, with only five goals and nine assists for 14 points in 73 games.

An unrestricted free agent after that down season in Chicago, Raddysh inked a one year, $1 million deal with the Washington Capitals. He spent the majority of the year on the Capitals fourth line with Nic Dowd and Brandon Duhaime. In 312 minutes together, the trio posted a 51.82 xGF%, according to NaturalStatTrick, on a team that has preached defensive responsibility under Spencer Carbery.

Japers' Rink framed the good for Raddysh thusly:

As a part of the team’s bottom six, Raddysh spent time on both the third and fourth lines and contributed to a pretty decent defensive showing for both while also generating plenty of chances in his own right (or at least being on the ice for those chances). ... While his offensive production wasn’t the biggest part of his game, he did have the second-best offensive season of his career, putting up seven goals and 27 points – a nice bounceback from a down year with the Blackhawks last season, when he managed just 14 points.

Also, the bad:

While Raddysh could be depended upon to provide some decent defense and helped generate offensive chances, the finishing…well, that left something to be desired. Those seven goals were the second-fewest among the team’s forwards; only Eller had fewer goals for the Caps, and he played in 17 fewer games in DC. He also, for some reason, spent a not insignificant chunk of time on the power play, and generated exactly one power-play point (by contrast, Jakub Vrana had a third of the ice time on the power play before hitting the waiver wire and ended the season with three points on the Caps’ power play).

You take the good, you take the bad, you take them both and there you have Taylor Raddysh.

Expectations

With that knowledge of what Raddysh, now 27 years old, was in Washington last year, we have a pretty good idea of what we can expect from his on the Rangers this year.

As I mentioned above, the moment he signed we knew where he'd be playing. With the fourth line locked up with Matt Rempe, Adam Edstrom, and (probably) Sam Carrick, Raddysh will play right wing on the third line.

Who will he be lining up next to? That's less certain.

With Mika Zibanejad to start the year on J.T. Miller's wing, it's likely Juuso Parsinen centering the third line to begin the year. On left wing, it's probably one of Brennan Othmann or Brett Berard, assuming (as Joe and I have on the podcast) that Gabe Perreault will start the season in Hartford.

We can be pretty sure that we'll all be spared the Taylor Raddysh power play experience that Capitals fans were subjected to last year. Although he barely sniffed the penalty kill in Washington, he did spend 113 minutes on the PK the year before in Chicago. So there's at least a decent possibility that Raddysh will see some time on the kill with the Rangers.

Predictions

Expectations for Raddysh shouldn't be very high. And they aren't. The Rangers don't need him to be something extra special. They know they have a defensively-responsible bottom six winger who seems to fit the style we assume the Rangers under Mike Sullivan want to play, who is now under contract for two seasons. He might chip in a few goals here and there, but there's no reason in expecting him to repeat what is increasingly looks like a fluky, lucky season in Chicago where he posted 20 goals.

Pencil him in for 10 goals and 15 assists for 25 points. This would be roughly around his career average, and fairly similar to what he posted playing 4th line minutes last year in Washington. He some benefit from some increased ice time, but the other parts of the Rangers third line for this year are far from settled.

A big part of his success will be whether Parssinen and Othmann (or Berard) start to click as legitimate NHL players. For that, we'll just have to wait and see.