The New York Rangers made a splash on June 27, but the latest NHL player tiers offer a blunt reminder that the price of Pavel Dorofeyev comes with real risk.
Hours before the first round of the 2026 NHL Draft, the Rangers held the fifth overall pick and were looking at a possible franchise defenseman to help steady the team. Instead, they swung a trade for Dorofeyev, sending two first-round draft picks, the 26th pick in the 2026 draft, a 2028 first-round pick, and a third-round pick in the 2026 draft the other way. Soon after, Dorofeyev put pen to paper on a seven-year deal worth $11 million AAV, coming off back-to-back 35-plus-goal seasons in the desert.
That contract is now under the microscope. On Wednesday, The Athletic ranked its top 150 NHL players and broke them into tiers ranging from cornerstone pieces to supporting cast. Dorofeyev landed in the latter group, and that label has fueled the feeling that the Rangers may have paid premium money for a player whose standing around the league doesn’t quite match the contract.
The pressure here starts at the top. Rangers president and general manager Chris Drury needed to add a new “superstar” after the departures of Artemi Panarin and Vincent Trocheck, and Dorofeyev was the move he made. The logic is clear enough: when you lose talent, you have to replace it somehow.
But the bill is already getting crowded. Igor Shesterkin is on $11.5 million AAV, Dorofeyev is at $11 million AAV, and the cap picture will keep tightening around the next wave of deals.
Adam Fox is due for a new contract three years from now, and his $9.5 million AAV already looks like a number that could be eclipsed in a hurry. The Rangers have also got Gabe Perreault on the horizon, and if he becomes the first-line or top-six winger they’re hoping for, that payday won’t come cheap either.
That is why Dorofeyev’s ranking matters. He has the kind of goal-scoring touch the Rangers need, and if he turns that into a true X-factor season in 2026-27, the deal can start to make sense in a different light. For now, though, the reaction is hard to ignore: New York may have spent big before the league fully agrees he belongs in that salary bracket.
Whether that’s because evaluators are still catching up to a rising cap, or because there are lingering questions about how much of Dorofeyev’s production was tied to his old setting, the message is the same. The Rangers bet big, and the early read on that bet is sobering.
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Rangers Fans Have One Big Hope Behind Zibanejad This Season
A recent fan poll from Forever Blueshirts offered a pretty clear snapshot of where Rangers supporters are heading into the new season: Mika Zibanejad is still viewed as the likeliest player to pace the team in scoring. It is the kind of expectation that says as much about the trust fans still place in Zibanejad as it does about the uncertainty around the rest of the forward group, with Alexis Lafreniere drawing plenty of goodwill from a crowd that seems ready to believe a breakout is coming.
The interesting part is how much hope is also being spread around behind him. Lafreniere and Pavel Dorofeyev emerged as the main challengers in the poll, while Adam Fox even picked up some write-in support from fans who could not quite keep him out of the conversation. For the Rangers, it is another reminder that the scoring race may not be viewed as a one-man debate for long, even if Zibanejad remains the standard everyone else is measured against. [Read more 🡒]