The Rangers don’t look like a team waiting around for help to arrive next summer. Nine games into the season, they’ve got a 6-3-0 record, sit second in the Metropolitan Division, and have done it while losing Igor Shesterkin to a season-ending knee injury.
That alone changes the conversation. Add in the way their forwards have started producing, and the urgency to chase a headline-grabbing scorer in free agency starts to fade fast.
The biggest early surprise has been the offense, especially up front in the top six. New addition Pavel Dorofeyev was supposed to be the big scoring piece after the Rangers brought him over from the Vegas Golden Knights, but he hasn’t even led the team in goals.
That distinction belongs to Alexis Lafreniere, who has seven through the first nine games and looks like the player the Rangers have been waiting to see more consistently. Behind him, Mika Zibanejad, Gabe Perreault, J.T.
Miller and Tye Kartye each have six points through nine games.
That kind of balance matters. When the top six is rolling, it softens the need to go shopping for another expensive scorer, especially if the market isn’t giving you much to work with. And right now, the list of possible impact forwards for next summer has been stripped down to almost nothing outside of Nikita Kucherov.
Some of the better options are already disappearing. Before the season even got going, the Ottawa Senators locked up Drake Batherson on an eight-year, $86 million extension. Batherson had developed into a reliable 60-70 point player, and now he’s off the board.
This week brought another name off the market. After the Red Wings’ 5-4 overtime loss to the New Jersey Devils on Tuesday, reports said Detroit had agreed to a seven-year, $91 million deal with Alex DeBrincat.
That one wasn’t a complete stunner, since DeBrincat had been clear multiple times that he wanted to stay. Still, it removes another scoring winger from the pool.
Kucherov remains the lone big name hanging out there, but even that feels more theoretical than realistic. It would be a strange turn for the Lightning to simply let a player who just won the Hart Trophy last season walk away from a franchise with multiple Stanley Cup titles.
There’s reason to like what the Rangers are seeing internally anyway. Last season was a disaster, but one encouraging sign was the top line of Lafreniere, Zibanejad and Perreault, which outscored opponents 14-10 by the end of the year. The hope was that chemistry would carry over into this season, even if the group didn’t stay together as a unit.
So far, the production has come from different combinations, but the results are there. Lafreniere has four assists to go with those seven goals and has given the Rangers the kind of star-level output they expected when they took him first overall in 2020.
Perreault has also taken a noticeable step with three goals and three assists already. Miller’s start has been just as encouraging.
His first full season as captain was derailed by injuries and a drop in production, but he has one goal and five assists so far while driving play from the second line.
Dorofeyev, meanwhile, has more work to do. He has only two goals through nine games, and while it’s far too early for panic, the Rangers didn’t pay him like a player who can take his time getting going.
They gave up two first-round picks, in 2026 and 2028, and handed him a seven-year, $77 million contract. He doesn’t need to light it up overnight, but the expectation is obvious.
For now, though, the Rangers’ early scoring depth changes the picture. The top six has been productive, the team is winning, and next summer’s free-agent class is looking thin. That combination makes it a lot easier to believe the Rangers may not need another splashy scoring addition after all.
In Other News...
Rangers Humiliated By Devils As A Familiar Concern Returns
The Rangers left Prudential Center with a result that quickly turned into damage control, falling 7-1 to the Devils in a game that unraveled after a late first-period opener. New York never found much footing from there, and Pavel Dorofeyevs third-period goal only softened the final line on a night when the margin kept growing and the game moved further out of reach.
Dylan Garand got the start in net, but the early pressure from New Jersey forced the Rangers into a familiar place they would rather avoid. Once the Devils settled in, they poured it on through the middle and final periods, and the kind of comeback hope that sometimes flickers in an NHL game never really materialized for New York. [Read more 🡒]
Rangers Suddenly Have A Pavel Dorofeyev Problem Mike Sullivan Can't Ignore
The Rangers have kept rolling even without Igor Shesterkin and Pavel Dorofeyev, but the latter has become a bigger talking point by the day. Dorofeyev has labored through a difficult season, and the team has already tried to spark him by moving him onto the top line, hoping a change in responsibility and surroundings would help him find his footing. For now, its another case of New York trying to keep its forward mix productive while one of its more prominent pieces searches for a rhythm.
Mike Sullivan is not treating the situation as static, either. Further line changes are on the table if Dorofeyev does not show more, and there is growing pressure on how long the club can keep waiting for the offense to catch up. The real issue is less about one cold stretch than what comes next if it continues, because the Rangers have to decide how much patience to show before they start making tougher choices with his role. [Read more 🡒]
Alexis Lafreniere Is Giving The Rangers Something Theyve Needed
The Rangers have opened the season 6-2, and the early surge has been fueled by a strong start at home, where they are still unbeaten. At the center of it all has been Alexis Lafreniere, who has emerged as the clubs most productive forward so far and given New York the kind of top-end scoring pop it has been searching for.
Lafrenieres start has included 10 points in eight games and a scoring rhythm that has kept him in the conversation every night. The pace is almost certainly going to come back to earth as the schedule wears on, but the bigger takeaway for the Rangers is harder to miss: he looks more assertive, more dangerous, and more like a player capable of carrying real offensive weight. [Read more 🡒]