After the dust settled from free agency, one of the biggest roster puzzles for the Rangers is still sitting on the blue line: Scott Morrow.
There’s a real case to be made for Morrow as a player who should have gotten more runway last season, and there’s also no denying he has the kind of puck-moving game that belongs in the organization’s conversation. But the hard truth is that making the team out of camp looks like a brutal climb, if it’s possible at all.
The Rangers already have four legitimate top-four defensemen who can move the puck, and that leaves Morrow without an obvious lane into the lineup. Even at his best right now, he doesn’t crack that top group, which pushes him toward a third-pairing role. And with Matthew Robertson and Braden Schneider both ahead of him in the mix, the path gets even narrower.
That’s where the waiver issue comes in. Morrow would have to clear waivers to get to Hartford, and that doesn’t sound like a realistic outcome. A team could easily take a shot on him just to keep him as a seventh defenseman, and that kind of pedigree tends to matter.
The Rangers could try to keep him as their own seventh defenseman, but that gets tricky with the way the roster is currently built.
The defense picture, as it stands, still has some moving parts. Alberts Smits is expected to make the team out of camp, which leaves one spot open, and that spot would likely go to Schneider. Even so, Chris Drury poured a little cold water on that idea at the post-free-agency press conference.
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Miller is not the only Ranger with a bounce-back angle attached to him, either, which is part of what makes this lineup so intriguing. Mika Zibanejad already showed how quickly a frustrating season can flip into something more productive, and the Rangers are hoping that sort of turnaround can spread through the group around him. With Miller, Zibanejad, Pavel Dorofeyev, Gabe Perreault, Alexis Lafrenire and Oliver Bjorkstrand forming the current projected top six, the real question is how quickly the pieces click and whether Dorofeyev can help unlock Millers playmaking early on. [Read more 🡒]
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The goalie discussion may be the sharpest example of that pressure, with the backup spot looming as a real hinge point behind Igor Shesterkin. Braden Schneider is also in a tricky spot after being used in a sheltered role, and the sense around him is that this is a sink-or-swim year with his place on the roster far from settled, which is exactly the kind of unresolved roster question that can define a Rangers season before it even starts. [Read more 🡒]
Two Rangers Forwards Are Carrying More Pressure Than Anyone
As the Rangers head toward the 2026-27 season, the conversation around their forward group is already turning into a familiar kind of pressure test. Andrew Chelney and Arthur Staple both pointed to the top six as the area under the most scrutiny, with the focus landing especially on the centers who are expected to drive the offense and steady a team trying to get back into the playoff picture.
Gabe Perreault is part of that discussion too, because New York needs his development to keep moving in the right direction after his late-season momentum. The bigger concern is what comes after the top six, where the Rangers do not have much proven scoring depth waiting in the wings, and that leaves the margin for error looking awfully thin if the front end does not deliver. [Read more 🡒]