Adam Fox’s opening act this season has him moving into rare Rangers territory.
A week ago, after a three-game point streak, Fox was tracking toward Brian Leetch’s franchise single-season record for a defenseman, 102 points in 1991-92. Two scoreless games slowed that surge, and then Fox picked up one assist in Friday’s 5-1 win over the Vancouver Canucks.
Even with that brief dip, the numbers remain eye-catching: through 21 games, Fox has 23 points, with 2 goals and 21 assists, a pace that projects to 92 points. That would land him second all-time among Rangers defensemen in a single season.
The bigger point is the way he has looked doing it. After an injury-marred 2025-26, the 28-year-old Jericho native and 2021 Norris Trophy winner has put himself squarely in the conversation with Leetch when it comes to the best defensemen in Rangers history.
Adam Graves, who played alongside Leetch and won the Stanley Cup with him in 1994, didn’t hesitate when asked where Fox belongs in that discussion.
“You're speaking to the Brian Leetch fan club,” Graves said when asked by Newsday how he thought Fox stacked up to Leetch. “I remember sitting with Brian watching Adam Fox when he was just a young kid coming into (his first) training camp … and just seeing the intellect and the intelligence with which he played.
And then winning a Norris - he plays such a smart game. You know, when you talk about hockey smarts, you have no better example of that than Adam Fox.
And he does it consistently.
“Watching a guy like Leetchie, a guy like Mess (Mark Messier), all these great players that I was lucky enough to play with, what made them great was not only… their hockey sense and their ability to do special things, but for me, to do it night in and night out, shift in and shift out. And do it in such a humble way. And I think that that's exactly the way Adam Fox carries himself.”
Leetch’s Rangers résumé is still the standard. He spent parts of 17 seasons with the club, arriving as a 19-year-old after playing for the U.S. team in the 1988 Olympics in Calgary, and was later traded to Toronto at the 2004 deadline.
After the NHL lockout wiped out 2004-05, he played one final season with Boston in 2005-06, finishing with 1,205 games, 247 goals, 781 assists and 1,028 points. With the Rangers alone, he played 1,129 games and piled up 240 goals, 741 assists and 981 points.
Fox is still building his case, but the trajectory is already loud. In eight seasons, he has 74 goals, 371 assists and 445 points in 507 games.
If he stays healthy, plays eight more years and simply doubles those totals, he would clear 1,000 games and land around 150 goals and 900 points. If that all came in a Rangers sweater, he’d sit third on the franchise scoring list behind Rod Gilbert and Leetch, with Mika Zibanejad also in the picture.
Even without that exact path, Fox is on track to finish in the franchise’s top five.
Elsewhere on the blue line, Sean Durzi is getting closer.
Durzi has missed the last seven games with an undisclosed injury, but he skated with the team in a non-contact jersey near the end of the road trip, a sign he should be back soon.
That creates a lineup question for Scott Morrow, who was scratched for the first 14 games before stepping in when Durzi went out. Morrow has one assist and is plus-3 in seven games, and he made one of the night’s better defensive plays Friday when he hustled back on a 3-on-2, knocked the puck off Conor Gallagher’s stick, and helped spark the counterattack that ended with Alexis Lafreniere’s goal. The Rangers have won five of the seven games Morrow has played, and coach Mike Sullivan said last week there was a path for him to remain in the lineup even once Durzi returned.
“That's not up to me,” Morrow said last week when asked about keeping his spot. “I mean, I feel like focusing on the long term or the big picture is not beneficial for me right now, and I just need to compartmentalize and try and help us win today.”
For now, the likeliest outcome is that Durzi slides right back in when healthy. If Morrow stays in the mix, it may require him to move to the left side, where he could help cover for rookie Alberts Smits, who is out week to week with an upper-body injury.
Morrow said he can handle that if needed.
“If necessary, yeah,” he said. “I did it most of my college career, so I could definitely do it if asked.”
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