Jason Strudwick spent part of his latest Rangers Recon appearance zooming in on the details that could shape the Rangers’ 2026-27 season, and Pavel Dorofeyev was one of the first names to come up.
Strudwick said Dorofeyev is “Obviously, a really talented player. I watched him play a lot when he was in Vegas, [but] how does he fit in there?”
He pointed to the kind of setup Dorofeyev had with the Golden Knights, where Jack Eichel and Mitch Marner were feeding pucks his way, and wondered whether the Rangers can match that environment. “He had some pretty good [centers] to play with in Vegas [with guys] like Jack Eichel and Mitch Marner passing the puck.
Do they have that in New York? J.T.
Miller is a good center [too], but [can] he move the puck the same way and find Dorofeyev the same way as the guys in Vegas?”
For Strudwick, the key is simple: get Dorofeyev the puck and let the goals follow. “I think getting Dorofeyev the puck and getting him scoring close to 40 goals like he did last year will be a really important thing,” he added.
He also had a lot to say about the Rangers’ reworked defense, with Sean Durzi drawing a specific mention. Strudwick called Durzi a player he likes, while warning against overselling him.
“I really like him. I don't want people to get super excited, because he's not an elite top-four [defender], but he's a puck-mover,” he said.
“I think that's really important in today's game. You look at how Carolina played last year, they had a lot of guys who could move the puck like Shayne Gostisbehere.
Getting the puck up to your talented forwards is job number one, and I think Durzi does that.”
From there, the conversation turned to two names that could loom large for New York: Adam Fox and Igor Shesterkin. Strudwick flagged both as possible wild cards because of how much they matter to the Rangers’ rebound hopes, and he was especially strong on Fox.
“I think I could probably beat him in a race from one end [of the ice] to the other” he said jokingly. “[But] I say that lovingly because the way he manipulates people with the puck on his stick is as good as or better than Quinn Hughes and Cale Makar.”
He didn’t stop there. Strudwick flat-out called Fox “elite,” putting him in the kind of company that instantly tells you how he views the Rangers’ defenseman.
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