The Rangers’ preseason won’t just be a tune-up. It might be the first real test of whether their reshaped roster actually puts them ahead of two other Metropolitan Division teams that also missed the playoffs last season.
New York is coming off a brutal year. The Rangers haven’t reached the playoffs since 2024, when they were two wins away from the Stanley Cup Final against the Florida Panthers. Last season only got uglier, with the team finishing in dead-last place in the entire Eastern Conference.
That collapse pushed the front office into action. This offseason, the Rangers added Pavel Dorofeyev as a new top scoring forward and tried to tighten things up on the back end with Sean Durzi and Marcus Pettersson. They also brought in Oliver Bjorkstrand, Eeli Tolvanen, and Joe Veleno, all with the same goal: get back into the playoff picture.
Before any of that becomes real, though, they’ll get a chance to measure themselves against the Devils and Islanders in the preseason. New York plays both rivals twice, starting on Sep. 21, and those games should give the Rangers and their fans an early read on where this group sits among the division’s playoff hopefuls.
The Devils are part of that same conversation, even if their path looks a little different. They started last season strong, but their playoff push faded, especially after Jack Hughes missed 21 games with a hand injury.
This summer they added Anthony Mantha, Evan Rodrigues, and Jesper Boqvist, and traded for high-upside forward Luke Evangelista. The biggest issue remains in goal after they moved Jacob Markstrom to the Panthers and appear set to go with Jake Allen, David Rittich, and Nico Daws.
That’s the gamble general manager Sunny Mehta is making.
The Islanders, meanwhile, seem positioned to be better than they were a year ago. They brought in Peter DeBoer late in the season to take over behind the bench, and while he doesn’t have a Stanley Cup title, he has a track record of deep playoff runs.
They also still have one of the league’s top goalies in Ilya Sorokin and what could be the next major NHL star in defenseman Matthew Schaefer. The question is whether letting Anders Lee walk in free agency and replacing him with Brayden Schenn will hold up.
New York’s own pressure point is bigger than any one preseason game. After last season’s disaster, a rebuild looked like a real possibility, the kind of reset that could have stocked the prospect pool the way Montreal and Philadelphia have done.
Instead, Chris Drury chose a retool: some future help, some immediate help, and a lot of risk. He also gave up a pile of high draft picks in the process, including three first-rounders.
That means these moves have to work. If they don’t, the Rangers could slide even further backward, and names like Adam Fox, Mika Zibanejad, and Igor Shesterkin could eventually be part of the fallout. For a team trying to climb out of the basement, that’s the nightmare scenario.
For now, the preseason is where the first answers arrive.
In Other News...
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For Rangers fans, there is a familiar name in the middle of it all, even if the broader issue is happening out west. Kreiders situation has become part roster management, part timing, and part leverage for a Ducks team trying to keep its long-term plans intact while sorting out Gauthiers next contract. [Read more 🡒]
Rangers May Have A Goalie Problem They Cant Ignore Behind Shesterkin
A professional scout raised an issue around the Rangers that could matter as the season wears on: the depth chart behind Igor Shesterkin. The concern is not about Shesterkin himself, but about whether the club has a backup it can trust enough to keep its No. 1 from carrying too heavy a load over a long year.
The scout pointed to the difficulty of finding a quality reserve goaltender and said general managers often have to give up draft picks or other assets to land one. He also stressed how valuable it is to have a high-end backup on a reasonable contract, because once the games pile up, the difference between merely surviving the season and protecting Shesterkin can become impossible to ignore. [Read more 🡒]
Rangers Camp Battle Could Force A Painful Young Roster Decision
Training camp is already shaping up as a meaningful test for a couple of young Rangers who sit on the roster bubble, with defenseman Scott Morrow and goaltender Dylan Garand among the prospects who need to stand out to avoid getting squeezed out. New additions to the roster have only tightened the competition, and for both players the path to staying in New York is more complicated than simply looking like one of the teams better young options.
Corey Pronmans recent waiver-wire watch list did not feature either Ranger, which at least hints that there may not be a huge market waiting if the club tries to send them down. Even so, Morrow and Garand no longer have the safety net of waiver exemption, so if they miss out on the NHL roster, the Rangers would have to expose them to the wire before sending them to Hartford. [Read more 🡒]