2026 Rangers Report Card: Juuso Parssinen

This article is part of an ongoing series of Rangers Report Cards, grading the performance of each member of the 2025-26 New York Rangers. To view more report cards in this series, go here.

To read the Season Preview for Jusso Parssinen, go here.

Expectations

Ahead of the 2025-26 season, I aimed to temper my expectations for Juuso Parssinen. With J.T. Miller and Mika Zibanejad set to start the season together on the same line, the Rangers’ center depth took a nose dive after their top two units. That left a gaping opportunity om the third line for Parssinen to grab hold of, especially considering the Rangers made a point to acquire him from the Colorado Avalanche at the 2025 NHL trade deadline—and to later sign him to a two-year contract worth $1.25 million annually.  

Entering the season at 24 years old, and with a somewhat intriguing combination of size (6-foot-3, 212 pounds) and skill, the job appeared to be Parssinen’s for the taking, despite some underwhelming actual on-ice results in his brief stint with the Rangers the prior season.

Here’s a summary of what I wrote before the season, with respect to specific predictions for Parssinen:

The most reasonable expectation at this point would be for Parssinen to begin the season in this (third-line center) role, but not provide the Blueshirts with enough production. Then they might seek other solutions for the third-line center role—internally (perhaps by shifting Zibanejad back to center, which would then leave a hole at right wing) or externally.

That doesn’t mean Parssinen couldn’t see at least spot duty on the fourth line, but overall, I’d expect him to appear in around 50-60 games and post around 15-20 points while not being much of a positive play driver.

Performance

NHL 20 GP | 2 G | 1 A | 3 PTS

AHL 15 GP | 5 G | 2 A | 7 PTS

Instead of Parssinen stepping up to be the team’s third-line pivot, it was 22-year-old Noah Laba who, despite no prior NHL experience, seized the role after a strong showing in training camp and preseason games. Parssinen was still on the NHL roster at the beginning of the season, but was not a mainstay in the lineup. While he managed a goal and an assist across his first two games played, he picked up only one more point (a goal) across 12 more NHL games before an eye-opening demotion.

Parssinen did not even make it to Thanksgiving before the Rangers waived him. He cleared waivers and wound up with AHL Hartford, but right after that, he suffered an upper-body injury and missed significant time.

Parssinen ended up appearing in only 15 total AHL games, tallying five goals and two assists. He did get a callup back to the Rangers in March, but went scoreless in six games. His underlying performance at the NHL level was also lackluster. On an already-paltry offensive team, Parssinen’s impact was still negative relative to other players.

Across his 20 NHL games, Parssinen averaged a meager 8:51 of ice time per contest. Needless to say, I massively overshot my measured expectations of 50-60 games and 15-20 points.

Grades

Author Grade: F

Banter Consensus: F

Final Evaluation

There’s no way around it: Parssinen’s 2025-26 season was an abject failure, which he himself recognized. His bad injury luck didn’t help matters, but that only happened after his place with the Rangers this season (or lack thereof) was decided.

Between his disappointing campaign and the bevy of bottom-six forwards who emerged for the Rangers (Mike Sullivan and Chris Drury’s strange assessment to add to the bottom six notwithstanding), it’s difficult to see Parssinen playing a meaningful role on this team moving forward. Perhaps other roster reconstruction could open another opportunity for him next season, but he already failed to seize a great opportunity this past season.