It's Time To Start Talking About a Carson Soucy Extension

Acquired in early March 2025 leading up to the 2025 trade deadline, the New York Rangers added 6-5 defender Carson Soucy to a relatively crowded—at the time—blue line. The reason for acquiring him was the Rangers were still—against all odds—in the playoff conversation, despite being an absolute disaster on the ice for most of the season. It was a low risk, high reward type of deal as the Rangers only gave up a third rounder to get him and already had two third round picks to begin with. The idea was for him to be a Ryan Lindgren replacement, at least in the short-term.

The problem was, Soucy was awful in the month or so he spent with the Rangers at the end of last season. The analytics did disagree significantly, but that had more to do with the fact that he was being carried by Adam Fox more nights than not. During our off-season Report Cards, our own Tom Dianora gave Soucy a D+ with the Banter Consensus grade not much higher (C-). This excerpt from his report card does a great job of summing up Soucy's efforts in his first 16 games in New York.  

As it turned out, Soucy was a net-negative for the Rangers. By the eye test, as a defender, he did not rediscover last season’s form, and seemed to be caught out of position in his own end numerous times, exacerbating a season-long trend of brain-dead defending from the Blueshirts.

It really is amazing what a difference a coaching change a new season can make. Eric did a good job of explaining in Soucy’s Season Preview piece that the expectation was for Soucy to play on that second pairing alongside Will Borgen and for them to be an OK, defensively-responsible pairing that can provide structure in key minutes. Roughly 30 games into the 2025-26 season, it’s fair to say that Soucy has exceeded those expectations as he has three goals and three assists and is a +7 in a total of 25 games played. He’s averaging just south of twenty minutes a night and has been a steady presence on the blue line. He brings physicality, good defensive instincts ,and has been contributing offensively which is always an added bonus—especially on a team who's biggest problem is scoring. 

With Soucy set to hit the open market this summer, the question has to be asked: Should the Rangers count on moving him before the trade deadline, or should they consider a future with him beyond this season?

Given how the Rangers have performed this year, there’s plenty of evidence to suggest they should sell anything that isn’t tied down and get as many assets back as possible. However, given what we know about the upcoming free agent class and the Rangers lack of depth on the back end, there’s also enough reason to believe that extending Soucy would be in the Rangers best interest.