The Rangers are heading into 2026-27 with a much different look, and the biggest question hanging over that roster is the same one that helped sink last season: what happens when the injuries pile up again?
New York finished 30th in the NHL standings last year, and the damage was made worse when key players went down. Some clubs can absorb that kind of blow.
The Rangers couldn’t. On Jan. 5, they got hit with a brutal one-two punch when Igor Shesterkin left with a lower-body injury against the Utah Mammoth and Adam Fox exited with an upper-body injury.
Neither was back for the rest of the month, and both stayed out until after the Winter Olympic break in February.
That stretch turned ugly fast. The Rangers dropped 11 of 13 games, slid to the bottom of the Eastern Conference, and general manager Chris Drury announced an organizational retool.
“Listen, every team has to endure injuries, we’re no different in that regard,” coach Mike Sullivan said at breakup day. “But what I’ll tell you is that some injuries are easier to endure than others, and we had some key ones at certain times in this season that made it tough.”
The Rangers logged 211 man-games lost to injury in 2025-26. That was a significant number, though not nearly as extreme as the Florida Panthers, who stayed in the playoff chase much longer despite more than 550 man-games lost.
“It’s not an excuse,” Sullivan stated. “We have to find ways to dig in and continue to grab points along the way when those circumstances arise. Every team deals with them.”
So the real issue now is whether this version of the Rangers is better built to survive the same kind of hits. At a few spots, the answer looks like yes. At others, not so much.
Start in goal, where last season’s Shesterkin injury exposed the depth in a hurry. Jonathan Quick, at 40, and Spencer Martin couldn’t keep the team afloat.
The Rangers have taken a different approach this time around with Joonas Korpisalo and Dylan Garand in the pipeline. Korpisalo, acquired in a trade with the Boston Bruins on July 1, is eight years younger than Quick and brings the kind of track record that suggests he can handle real NHL minutes.
Garand, meanwhile, could be a phone call away from Hartford if he clears waivers, and the 24-year-old showed enough in three strong starts late last season to look like a real upgrade over Martin.
The Rangers don’t want to test that setup. But if Shesterkin misses time again, they’re better equipped than they were a year ago.
The same basic idea applies to Fox. Last season, when he missed 27 games across two separate injuries, Braden Schneider got pushed up to the top pair next to Vladislav Gavrikov, and the results weren’t pretty for either the player or the team.
Schneider is still there, and he would still be part of the answer. But Sean Durzi changes the equation.
Durzi, the 27-year-old right-shot defenseman brought in from the Utah Mammoth in an offseason trade, gives the Rangers a more natural fit to take over heavier minutes, especially on the power play. If Fox is out, Durzi is the one who can step into that PP1 quarterback role. Sullivan could mix and match at even strength, perhaps sharing the load between Durzi and Schneider depending on the matchup, but having Durzi on the second pair gives the Rangers more room to breathe than they had before.
Down the middle, though, the picture is less comforting.
Last season, the Rangers were able to patch things together when Vincent Trocheck missed 13 games early because there were simply more centers available. J.T.
Miller, often playing through pain, also missed 14 games. Between Trocheck, Miller, Mika Zibanejad, Noah Laba, Sam Carrick, and Jonny Brodzinski, the team had enough pivots to keep moving pieces around.
Miller and Zibanejad could slide to the wing, and Brodzinski could come in as the extra forward.
That safety net is thinner now. Trocheck was traded to the Mammoth on July 1, Brodzinski left in free agency, and Joe Veleno was signed to take over Carrick’s old fourth-line center role.
The Rangers simply don’t have the same center depth they did last season, and that matters even more with Miller and Zibanejad both 33. Cole Beaudoin is there as a top prospect, but he’s only 20 and has no NHL experience yet.
Beyond him, the minor-league options don’t jump off the page.
Even with everyone healthy, the Rangers are less sturdy down the middle after Trocheck’s departure. If injuries hit that position again, the margin for error gets awfully small.
The bottom six looks far more promising. Last year, the Rangers seemed to have something cooking on the fourth line with Sam Carrick, Matt Rempe, and Adam Edstrom, only for that to unravel when Rempe suffered a severe thumb injury in a late-October fight with San Jose Sharks enforcer Ryan Reaves.
Rempe eventually had two surgeries, and his season was finished. Edstrom also missed a significant chunk of time with a lower-body injury.
The lineup kept shifting after that until Adam Sykora and Jaroslav Chmelar settled into roles after being recalled from Hartford down the stretch. This summer, the Rangers traded Edstrom and Brett Berard, but Rempe is expected to be ready for training camp.
Sykora and Chmelar are still in the mix for opening-night jobs, and they’re joined by a deeper wave of bottom-six competition that includes Liam Greentree, Nathan Aspinall, and Jacob Battaglia. Veterans Taylor Raddysh and Tye Kartye are also part of that group.
That’s where the Rangers look most protected if injuries strike again. The depth is younger, larger, and more crowded than it was a year ago, and that gives the team more options if the bottom six gets tested.
So the answer to the Rangers’ injury question is a mixed one. In goal and on defense, they’re in better shape than they were last season. Up front, especially at center, the concern is still real.
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