The Rangers have been waiting for Pavel Dorofeyev to turn one good night into a real run, and Thursday’s power-play strike against the Flyers gave them another reason to believe it might finally be happening.
Dorofeyev’s third-period goal in the final game of the homestand was a quick-release finish that beat goaltender Joseph Woll before he could even get set. It pulled the Rangers even and opened the door for Tye Kartye’s winner 1:29 later. For a team that spent the summer paying a steep price to bring in a proven scorer, it was the kind of moment they’ve been chasing.
“I think it's a huge goal for him, for us and him,” coach Mike Sullivan said afterward. “I think it'll be good for Pav.”
That’s been the theme around Dorofeyev all season: one goal, then the hope that the next one starts a streak. The 26-year-old Russian has five goals in 17 games, a pace that would leave him well short of the 37 he posted for Vegas last season. The Rangers didn’t trade two first-round picks and a third-rounder for a modest scoring rate, and they certainly didn’t hand him a seven-year, $77 million contract expecting patience to be the long-term answer.
They brought him in to finish.
Dorofeyev gave them exactly that kind of profile after scoring 32 goals for Vegas in 2024-25, then 37 last season, along with 12 more in the playoffs. The Rangers knew he wouldn’t be playing with Jack Eichel and Mitch Marner in New York, but they still expected him to be a goal source no matter who lined up beside him on Broadway.
So far, the fit has been a work in progress. Sullivan has kept moving him around in search of the right chemistry, starting him with J.T.
Miller and Oliver Bjorkstrand before Bjorkstrand was replaced by Kartye. He also tried Dorofeyev on the first line with Mika Zibanejad and Alexis Lafreniere, then dropped him to the third line with Will Cuylle and Noah Laba in the third period Thursday.
Against the Kraken on Saturday, he opened on a rebuilt third line with Eeli Tolvanen and Cuylle.
“Obviously we're trying to find combinations where we can develop some chemistry,’’ Sullivan said after Thursday’s game. “It's been a few games now [for Dorofeyev on the top line]. We just felt… we need more from our top guys, and so we made that switch.”
The encouraging part for the Rangers is that the chances have been there. Dorofeyev has rung up enough posts and crossbars that everyone around him keeps waiting for the bounces to flip. His own view was simple.
“I just gotta keep focus… and keep trying, again and again,” Dorofeyev said Thursday. “And hopefully it’s gonna come [off the] post and in, at some point.”
That hope matters more now than it did early in the season. The Rangers opened by winning four of their first five, which made it easier to stay patient.
But the season-ending injury to Igor Shesterkin changed the math. Without him to help drag them through tight, low-scoring games, the Rangers need offense to pick up the slack.
They entered Saturday with 51 goals in 17 games, good for 3.00 per game and 21st in the 32-team league. That’s not enough if they’re serious about making a playoff push, and getting Dorofeyev going would go a long way toward fixing it.
He hadn’t scored in back-to-back games before Thursday, but he had found the net three times in his previous five outings. For the Rangers, that’s enough to keep the optimism alive - at least for now.
Blue lines: Goalie Joonas Korpisalo, who had been out of action since the opening game of the season, due to a lower-body injury, was activated off injured reserve and started Saturday, making his regular season debut for the Rangers… Rookie defenseman Alberts Smits was a late scratch with an upper-body injury. Matthew Robertson drew in and made his season debut.
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