2026 Elimination Eval: New York Rangers

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to Elimination Evals—a series that carries on throughout the post season, taking an in-depth look at the performances of each playoff team, discussing whether they met their goals, overachieved, underachieved, what the future holds, and what the biggest question marks are heading into the off-season.

While this series is typically reserved for teams being eliminated from the postseason who were participating in the postseason, we'll kick the series off this year with our own New York Rangers.

While the Rangers were obviously far from sniffing the playoff picture, they were a team that had loftier expectations this season after a disaster campaign the year prior. How does a season where they finished at the bottom of the Eastern Conference standings pave the way for them moving forward? Let's dive in.

Expectations

If you look back at our regular season predictions, every single one of us expected the Rangers to at least finish third in the Metropolitan Division, if not higher. And it wasn’t just us. Steve Dangle, Adam Wylde, and Jesse Blake of the Steve Dangle Podcast Network had them making the playoffs, finishing either third or fourth. Greg Wyshynski of ESPN had them finishing fourth and making the playoffs. JFresh of Elite Prospects had them finishing third, along with several others.

The general consensus surrounding this Rangers group was that they should be capable of landing at least a wildcard spot. Missing the playoffs, however, could help them jump start a necessary re-tool that can set them up for a greater chance of success down the road. While they were a team on the fringes, no one expected them to be even worse than they were last year. But, sure enough, they were.

Season Recap

For the playoff teams, this is where I give a rundown of how the series went. But since we already cover every game of the season in depth, I’ll just quickly summarize how this season played out for the Rangers.

They started off playing sound defensive hockey that allowed them to compete with top teams in the league, but could not generate offense in any way, shape, or form. Then came the MSG Curse, where the team simply could not win on home ice, resulting in a season-long 14-20-7 record at the Garden. 

Then of course there were the injuries. J.T. Miller messed up his groin in preseason, missed some time throughout the year, and really wasn't the same for the majority of the season. Vincent Trocheck went down early and missed an extended amount of time. The Rangers were without Adam Fox and Igor Shesterkin for key stretches of the season. And that's not to mention other missing Will Borgen, Noah Laba, Adam Edstrom and Matt Rempe for periods of time. 

This team really didn’t find their footing until after the Olympic break, when they decided to give the younger players in the system more in depth opportunities, trade Artemi Panarin, and fully embrace the retool. By then it was too little, too late. And, short of winning out, there wasn't anything they could do to salvage the season in terms of satisfying their season expectations.

Predictions

For the playoffs, this is normally where I’ll compare results to playoff predictions. Seeing as the Rangers are the only non playoff team I'm doing this type of evaluation for and I already covered our season predictions for them in the expectations portion, I'll just say reiterate that no one predicted them to be this bad this year. The expectations for next season will remain what they were for this season and therefore, the Rangers should be closer to meeting those expectations next season.

Was the Season a Success? 

This really depends on what your definition of success is. If we’re talking about success in relation to the expectations we held for the Rangers this season, then absolutely not. If we’re talking about what needed to happen in order for this team to have success longer term, you could argue it was a bit of a success.

This team proved to us time and time again last season that they were not good enough. Their inability to score goals, let alone win hockey games at the start of this season only confirmed that they were not good enough as currently constructed. This led to the Rangers selling at the deadline, moving on from Panarin, trusting the kids, and embracing a retool. Whether or not that plays out successfully is a conversation for another day but if you wanted this team to take the necessary steps to prepare for a more productive future, then it was—to an extent—successful.

Pending Free Agents

The Rangers have a total of seven pending UFAs and six RFAs. Of those thirteen players, only six are currently on the Rangers roster. 

The UFAs include Jonny Brodzinski, Conor Sheary, Trey Fix-Wolansky, Casey Fitzgerald, Connor Mackey, Brandon Scanlin, and the retiring Jonathan Quick. If it were up to me, Fix-Wolansky would really be the only name I’d consider signing to an extension, and that’s mainly to have an experience forward capable of playing in the top six for Hartford. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if the Rangers entertained bringing back one or both of Brodzinski and Sheary.

Should they? I don’t see any reason to. Brodzinski has been a great locker room guy for years and is effective enough on the ice, but it’s time for change. He’ll be 33 this summer, and I imagine his best years are behind of him. We know Sheary is Mike Sullivan’s 'ole reliable,' but he’s turning 34 this summer and if the goal is for the Rangers to improve, keeping Sheary involved is the lazy choice that will keep this team stagnant. 

As for the RFA’s, the Rangers have Braden Schneider, Dylan Garand, Vincent Iorio, Brett Berard, Scott Morrow, and Brendan Brisson. Schneider will likely be traded during the offseason if not on draft day. Everyone else will likely receive qualifying offers and should be back with the organization next season. Garand could see a slight pay raise, especially if he’s expected to be the full time backup, but everyone else should be re-upped at or around $950,000.

Biggest Question Moving Forward

Vincent Trocheck is undoubtedly the biggest question mark for the Rangers right now. Is he going to stick around and be a middle-six center for them to start next season? Or is he going to be the piece that lands them a notable return on the trade market? There’s a case to be made for both.

If the Rangers draft high enough to land a Gavin McKenna, Ivar Stenberg, or even Ethan Belchetz then perhaps you keep Trocheck, try to sign a guy like Alex Tuch, and hope enough pieces fall into place to get them back into the playoffs. However, if the Rangers draft or acquire a center and feel Trocheck can bring them back draft capital, a top four defenseman, or other important pieces to effectively retool with, trading him might be the best course of action.  

Projected Lineup

Until the Rangers make a decision on Trocheck and Schneider, it’s a bit difficult to truly imagine how this team could lineup come opening night. For the sake of this exercise, let’s assume they both stick around. That leaves them with: 

Perreault - Zibanejad - Lafrenière
Cuylle - Miller -  Raddysh
Kartye - Trocheck - Lamb/Greentree
Sykora - Rempe/Edstrom - Chmelar
Aspinall - Parssinen - Berard

Gavrikov - Fox
Fortescue - Schneider*
Robertson - Borgen
Vaakanainen - Morrow/Iorio** 

Shesterkin - Garand - Martin

(*-RFAs)

Final Thoughts

If the Rangers want to compete for a wildcard spot next season, they need to find a top-six right winger, find a way to completely revamp their defense unless they want to just trust the kids and give Morrow, Iorio, and Fortescue the reins, and hope that one of Brody Lamb or Liam Greentree are ready to take that next step. Depending on how the draft goes, they could get additional help on the wings or on the blue line, but chances are any center they land will need another year at least before they’re ready to play in the NHL. 

There’s plenty of work to be done and until some of those questions get answered, it’s hard to say with certainty what can be expected of this group moving forward. The recent spark the kids have provided certainly gives some reason for optimism but if much else doesn’t change, you’re simply banking on Zibanejad, Fox, and Shesterkin to carry this team back to the playoffs. It was a mainly discouraging season, but the organization did make some encouraging moves to prepare for the future.

How they build from that will be the ultimate test.