Jaroslav Chmelař has put the Rangers in a pretty interesting spot heading into 2026-27.
At 6'4" and 227 pounds, he’s big enough to jump off the ice immediately, and he’s done enough over the last two seasons to make a legitimate push for an opening-night role in New York. But if he doesn’t land that job out of camp, the Rangers may still be in great shape. Hartford could be the perfect place for him to keep growing, while also giving the organization a ready-made call-up option when the need pops up.
That’s the twist with Chmelař: there’s a real case for him to stick with the big club, but there’s also a strong argument that a little more time in the AHL could sharpen the parts of his game that matter most.
The Rangers didn’t exactly uncover a sure thing when they took Chmelař in the fifth round of the 2021 draft. With the COVID pandemic clouding the scouting process, players taken outside the early rounds came with a lot of uncertainty. Chmelař fit that profile then, and for a while he looked like just another long shot.
He hasn’t played like one lately.
His numbers from Finland didn’t scream future NHL regular, and neither did his NCAA production, which included 13 points in 33 games as a freshman and 15 points in 26 games in his second season. But once he got to the AHL, the trajectory started to change.
In 2024-25, he put up 29 points in 71 games for Hartford, though the minus-37 rating was impossible to ignore. Last season, he trimmed that down to 25 points in 46 games while improving to a minus-7.
That kind of step forward matters.
That growth earned him a look with the Rangers to close the season, and he made an impression in 28 games with the varsity squad. He scored four goals and added two assists for six points, finishing at minus-2. The underlying numbers were better than the raw results suggested, too, with a 43.86 GF%, a 48.31 CF% and a 53.68 xGF% that pointed to a bit of bad luck.
If Chmelař starts the year in Hartford, it wouldn’t necessarily be a setback. It could be the cleanest path to getting more out of him.
The Wolf Pack’s new coaching setup adds another layer here. Jay Leach is now running the bench, and Bob Woods was recently named Associate Coach, with both charged with developing the next wave of prospects. Attention will go to names like Liam Greentree, Cole Beaudoin and Nathan Aspinall, but Chmelař deserves to be part of that conversation, too.
He also appears to have won over Mike Sullivan as he kept getting more NHL reps. Sullivan likes players who skate hard, disrupt plays and process the game well, and a quote from March captured why Chmelař fits that mold:
"What's different this time on this call up is his pace - not only his physical pace, but also how he's processing the game. I think as players, the more experience they get at the NHL level, the…
If he doesn’t crack the Rangers right away, Hartford would give him the chance to play bigger minutes and round out the rest of his game. The Rangers could keep him as the 13th forward, but the more likely path is letting him play meaningful minutes in the AHL and bringing him back when the time is right. In that setup, he’d likely be in Hartford’s top six while projecting as a bottom-six option in New York.
There’s still offensive upside here, too. Chmelař’s game doesn’t have to be limited to heavy forechecking and disruption. If he keeps building on what he showed last season, he could still grow into a 40-plus point contributor.
Rookie camp should give a clearer picture of where the Rangers stand, and main camp will tell the rest. Most roster spots already look spoken for, but a few jobs are still there to be won.
Chmelař feels like one of the more important names in that mix, whether he starts in New York or Hartford. Either way, the Rangers may not have to wait long to see him back on Broadway.
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