2026 Rangers Report Card: Urho Vaakanainen

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 Urho Vaakanainen, go here. 

While Urho Vaakanainen was mainly considered to be the throw-in in the Jacob Trouba trade, there was always a small glimmer of hope that he could become more than that for the New York Rangers. A former mid-first round pick, Vaakanainen was never a guy who had a particularly high ceiling, but was expected to be a steady, reliable bottom pair defenseman who can slot up to the second pair in a pinch. Seven seasons of professional hockey later, Vaakanainen is nearing the end of his tenure with his third differentteam and has yet to truly establish himself as anything more than a seventh defenseman.

Expectations

If things went according to plan for the Rangers and they had the bounce-back season we were all hoping for, there really weren’t many expectations for Vaakanainen from the team’s perspective—aside from him being a reliable seventh defenseman. Heading into the season, it was expected that a full time job on the third pairing was his to lose to one or both of Matthew Robertson and Scott Morrow. Here’s what I had to say in my season preview about what his goals for the season should be: 

Bottom line, I’d say 64 games would be a reasonable guess for how many times Vaakanainen is in the lineup for the Rangers. Among his goals for the season, staying healthy should be the biggest priority as that’s going to be an imperative part of his future in the NHL. 

Beyond that, playing in more games than last season, putting up at least a few more points than he did last season, and making Team Finland for the Olympics should all be atop his list of goals for the coming season. He may be coming off a career high season but he’s far too young to settle for 16-points being his peak, even if offense isn’t the focus of his game.

Based on that, this year was quite the disappointment for Vaakanainen. He played in significantly fewer games compared to last season, had a 10 point drop off, did not establish himself as anywhere close to an every-day defenseman, and—arguably worst of all—could not crack Team Finland’s Olympic roster. 

Performance

34 GP | 0 G | 6 A | 6 PTS | +/- 0 | 23 SOG | 14 PIM

Similarly to Carson Soucy, Vaakanainen isn't a guy you’re looking to for a bunch of impressive counting stats by the end of the season. He’s a guy you’d like to see play comfortably on a bottom pairing, put up good defensive metrics, and help keep the puck out of the Rangers' net. 

He only played in fewer than half of the games for the Rangers this season, and that wasn't for lack of opportunity. Vaakanainen made the team out of camp and had every opportunity to keep a roster spot. However, the rise of Matthew Robertson resulted in him eventually being pushed out of the lineup, at least until some injuries came around.

His main defensive partner was Braden Schneider, who he played just under 189 minutes with. According to Moneypuck, the two combined for a 48.2% xGF%. Other than that, he spent roughly 88 minutes on a pair with Will Borgen (43.9 xGF%) and 64 minutes with Scott Morrow (51.6 xGF%). 

All things considered, those are fine numbers for combinations that should, on paper, be your third pairing. Problem is, Schneider and Borgen are currently the Rangers third and fourth most important defensemen—the order of which is not a fun debate. In Vaakanainen’s time playing with both of those players, there were situations where they could have eclipsed the non-top pairing as a “second” pair. When Borgen and Schneider were split apart and it was mainly Robertson and Vaakanainen playing on their left. You could argue that, given where Vaakanainen is in his career, he should have taken that opportunity and run with it.  

Instead, Robertson was the one who stood out, and as players like Vincent Iorio and Drew Fortescue entered the picture, Vaakanainen was becoming less and less of a priority as the season went on. His best stretch of hockey came in November, as he helped the Rangers win all but one of the six games he played in that month. After that, he only played three games in December and a seven game run at the end of January that led into the Olympic break. From that point on, the only reason Vaakanainen really entered the lineup was to keep fresh.

Grades

Author's Grade: D-

Banter Consensus: F

Final Evaluation

This is going to be the final season of the extension Chris Drury signed Vaakanainen to, meaning it should be the last season of Urho Vaakanainen in New York. This was a player I was excited about in his draft class. I saw him being a bit of an underrated stay-at-home defenseman who can fit in on a team’s core of defense nicely as a bottom-pair guy who runs under the radar in the right ways. This season, compared to last, was a massive step backwards in his career. He’s going to be 28 at the start of next calendar year, meaning whatever happens this season and during the off-season that follows, could make or break his NHL future. 

As things currently stand, this is what the Rangers defense looks like:

Gavirkov - Fox
Robertson - Schneider
Fortescue - Borgen
Vaakanainen - Iorio/Morrow

Based on that in itself, I’m not optimistic about Vaakanainen’s chances of playing all that much next season. Especially when you consider that Chris Drury’s main priority seems to be revamping the blueline with puck-moving defenseman. Outside of being the break-glass-in-case-of-emergency seventh defenseman, there really isn’t a place for Vaakanainen on this Rangers team. Even in the event of injuries, you’d rather see guys like Scott Morrow and Vincent Iorio get looks and for all intents and purposes, it feels like both Robertson and Drew Fortescue have passed him in the depth charts. 

At this point, the best case scenario for Vaakanainen’s career might honestly be getting claimed on waivers during preseason. Otherwise, the only chance he has at seeing real ice time in New York this season would be if injuries come up, and that’s before we know what additional off-season moves the Rangers are going to make.

This is someone teams will surely still have interest in on the free agent market next season, even if only as a seventh defenseman. But you have to imagine Vaakanainen would like the chance to play in more games to ensure he has a job opportunity next season.