2026 Rangers Report Card: Sam Carrick

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 Sam Carrick, go here. 

Amongst a segment of the fanbase—and certainly across much of Rangers Twitter—there was a running half-joke that the only person on the 2025-26 New York Rangers deserving of the Steven McDonald Extra Effort Award was Sam Carrick.

This was a half-joke in that it was somewhat of an indictment of this putrid hockey team. The guy most deserving of an award for extra effort is a fourth liner who no one thought all that much of when he signed a 3-year, $3 million deal before last season? Really? (I'd still argue that any fan who watched all 82 games of this 29th place season was most deserving of that award, but whatever.)

In the end, the award went to Mika Zibanejad. Considering the options—and considering Mika's bounce-back season—this was a perfectly defensible decision. But the half of that half-joke that wasn't a joke was that Sam Carrick was consistently the one of the few guys, if not the only guy, on the Rangers on a night-in, night-out basis who seemed like he cared.

In the end, that's what made Carrick worthy of a third round and a sixth round pick from the Buffalo Sabres at the trade deadline—which the bonus value of perhaps being a sign of thawing tensions between that organization and the Rangers. But it's also what will make Carrick sorely missed going forward, even if replacing him shouldn't be particularly hard.

Sam Carrick can play of my hockey team any day. In this house, Sam Carrick is a hero. End of story.

Expectations

Here's what I had to say in the Season Preview:

Given their comparative usage last year, you'd probably expect to see Carrick start the season as the pivot between the twin towers of Matt Rempe and Adam Edstrom, with Brodzinski starting the year as the extra forward. Given what we saw from this trio in about 74 minutes of action last year, you'd have feel pretty good about that fourth line. Carrick is a savvy veteran leader between two young, but incredibly physically gifted wingers. They have a real opportunity to create havoc when they're on the ice together, pressing on the forecheck, playing physical, and wearing down the opposition they're out there against.

Well, I wasn't quite right about the fourth line. If you want to review why I was wrong about that, you can read the Report Cards for Adam Edstrom and Matt Rempe, as they are far more relevant to why. But suffice it to say that Sam Carrick was no where near the list of reasons that the fourth line we predicted the Rangers would have this year didn't work out.

Perhaps the only thing I discounted for Carrick heading into the season was his intangibles: his heart, his grit, and his willingness to jump into the fray to defend his teammates whenever necessary. I may not have fully expected that from him, but he sure delivered it anyway.

Performance

60 GP | 4 G | 6 A | 10 PTS | -2 | 56 SOG | 53 PIM

I'd predicted a 7-15-22 line in 80 games for Carrick in the Season Preview. When you combine the stats above with the ones from the 13 regular season games he played with the Buffalo Sabres after the trade, he nets out at 9-7-16 in 73 games. So, not terribly far off.

As noted above, mostly for injury reasons to the twin towers of Matt Rempe and Adam Edstrom, Carrick didn't spend most of his ice time with those two. As is often the case with bottom six players, especially when your projected linemates miss most of the season with injuries, he found himself on a lot of different line combinations throughout the season.

In the end, he did spend the most time with Rempe and Edstrom of any other combination (65:19 TOI). The two other combos he played with the most were Edstrom and Taylor Raddysh (64:55 TOI) and Jonny Brodzinski and Raddysh (49:00 TOI).

For what it's worth, in that limited but most-of-any-Carrick-combination time he spent with Rempe and Edstrom, they were pretty good. They staked to the tune of a 57.02 xGF%. The Edstrom-Raddysh (50.37 xGF%) and Brodzinski-Raddysh (49.04 xGF%) combos were fine.

But what made Carrick so easy to love as a New York Ranger was his willingness to mix it up, jump in the scrum, and to consistently play like he gave a shit on a team where it wasn't always obvious that every other player gave one (looking at you, J.T. Miller).

Grades

Author's Grade: A

Banter Consensus: A-

Final Evaluation

Like I said above, Sam Carrick can play on my hockey team any day.

In the classic film Rudy, when Daniel "Rudy" Ruettiger goes to see Notre Dame coach Ara Parseghian to ask if he can dress in one of the next season's games, Parseghian tells him, "I wish God would put your heart in some of my players' bodies."

That's how I feel about Carrick. As an NHL hockey player, his skillset is somewhat limited. But what's beyond question is his heart and his dedication. He was always the first to come to the defense of his teammates. He single-handedly demonstrated that you don't need a designated "fighter" on the team, because Carrick was willing to drop the mitts when it was necessary. He was one of the few that actually gave extra effort this year.

Sam Carrick will be missed. I wish God would put his heart in some other Rangers' bodies.