Pavel Dorofeyev is walking into a very different spotlight with the New York Rangers.
In Vegas, the 25-year-old winger built his reputation as a pure finisher, piling up 35 goals in the 2024-25 season and then 37 the next year. But the Golden Knights always had a loaded cast around him, with names like Jack Eichel and Mitch Marner absorbing plenty of the attention that comes with being a star in the NHL.
That won’t be the case in New York. The Rangers are handing Dorofeyev a larger stage and, with it, a different kind of pressure. He said he’s ready for that during the player’s media tour.
“If you fear that type of challenge, you just have to be a man and accept the challenge and do your best to just just be the same way,” Dorofeyev said. “I don’t have to change much.”
The move also says plenty about where the Rangers are trying to go. After missing the playoffs in each of the past two seasons, the franchise has gone through major turnover and bounced between competing and retooling. Dorofeyev’s arrival fits Chris Drury’s push to get younger, but it also signals that New York still wants to get back into the playoff mix rather than settle into a long rebuild.
Dorofeyev said he likes what he sees in the group around him.
“We have a great group of guys,” Dorofeyev said. “We have a lot of skill, a lot of potential, and we're gonna work hard to be good. We're gonna put that effort together.”
He now slots into the Rangers’ core alongside Igor Shesterkin, Adam Fox, J.T. Miller, Vladislav Gavrikov, and Mika Zibanejad, giving the team another important piece as camp approaches. Dorofeyev said offseason conversations have already helped him start building those connections.
“When I got traded, I knew them (Shesterkin and Gavrikov) before,” Dorofeyev said. “We were in touch a little bit.
Not just necessarily Shesterkin and Gavrikov. I can easily talk to J.T., Mika, Lafrenière.
We are all on the same page.”
For now, the next step is simple: a new city, a new role, and a much brighter set of expectations. Whether Dorofeyev can handle that jump will be one of the bigger questions around the Rangers as training camp opens.
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