An undrafted waiver pickup has gone from depth option to a fixture beside J.T. Miller and Alexis Lafrenière, and that kind of rise usually comes with a price tag. With the salary cap climbing and the Rangers’ projected space set to disappear quickly, Tye Kartye is exactly the sort of player who can become more expensive than he looks on paper.
That’s the larger backdrop for this look at New York’s pending free agents and what it might take to retain them. The whole point of the exercise is simple enough: the Rangers have to decide who fits, what they’re worth, and whether keeping them in New York makes sense once the market starts moving. For a player like Kartye, who arrived by way of waivers and has already forced his way into a top-six role, the answer is not as straightforward as it once seemed.
Kartye’s path to this point has been unusual. The 6-foot, 197-pound left winger from Kingston, Ontario came out of the Soo Greyhounds and signed with the Seattle Kraken during their inaugural season. He quickly put up numbers in the AHL, finishing his first full season of pro hockey with 57 points in 72 games for the Coachella Valley Firebirds.
That was also the only full season he spent in the AHL. Over the next two years, he stayed with the Kraken for most of the time and averaged roughly 16.5 points.
Then came the 2025-26 season, when his offense and ice time dipped; he had eight points in 40 games with Seattle before landing on waivers. The Rangers claimed him, and he gave them a jolt in a bottom-six role, finishing the year with 14 more points in 24 games in New York.
This season, Kartye entered camp with the expectation that he’d live in the bottom six. With most of the attention going to either Oliver Bjorkstrand or Will Cuylle as the possible fill-in for a top-six opening, Kartye looked like a fourth-line candidate at best, maybe third line if everything broke right. Instead, he has become the missing piece next to Miller and Lafrenière.
Through 11 games, he has 2 goals and 5 assists for 7 points.
What makes Kartye pop in that spot is less flash than utility. He doesn’t win with pure skill, but he brings the kind of game that coaches trust: hard on the forecheck, willing to block shots, active on the penalty kill, and committed to the unglamorous stuff that keeps shifts alive. He finishes checks, skates hard, and makes the right defensive reads without giving up much on the offensive end.
That fit matters because he’s often the first man on the puck, which helps set up Miller and Lafrenière. Those two are already central to the Rangers’ attack, and Kartye’s job is to make them better. Lafrenière’s goal against the Tampa Bay Lightning was cited as a perfect example of how that line has started to click.
In Other News...
Sean Durzi Solves One Rangers Need While Exposing Another
Sean Durzi has already given the Rangers what they hoped to get when they brought him in over the summer: a steadier blue line and a presence that seems to fit naturally in the room. The comparison to Vincent Trocheck is obvious enough for anyone around the team. Both are similar in build, both play with a similar edge, and both come with the kind of workmanlike reputation that tends to travel well in New York. Durzi has also brought a little of the same personality and energy that made Trocheck so useful to the Rangers beyond the stat sheet.
What the move has also done, though, is shine a brighter light on the other side of the ledger. Trochecks departure left a hole down the middle, and the Rangers are feeling the effects in their center depth as the season goes along. Durzis past injury history is part of the broader picture too, because the Rangers know the upside is real but the margin for error is thin when a player has had to battle through health issues before. [Read more 🡒]
Rangers Hot Start Still Hasnt Solved One Bigger Problem
The Rangers strong start has done plenty to build optimism in New York, but it has not yet changed the way star players view the organization when bigger decisions come up. Dylan Larkin has reportedly widened his trade wishlist from three teams to 10, and the club on Broadway still is not on it, a reminder that early-season momentum does not automatically make a team a destination for elite talent.
The latest list apparently does include several familiar Eastern Conference names, with the Hurricanes, Devils and Capitals among the teams Larkin is open to. For the Rangers, that leaves a familiar kind of frustration: they can look like a contender on the ice and still find themselves on the outside when the leagues top names start narrowing their options. [Read more 🡒]
Adam Fox Is Turning The Garden Into A Huge Rangers Edge
Madison Square Garden has been doing its part, but Adam Fox keeps giving the Rangers another layer at home. In the 5-2 win over the Ducks, the defenseman added his 10th assist of the season and continued a stretch that has made him hard to keep off the scoresheet in his own building. New York is now 6-0-0 at home, and Foxs presence has been a big reason the building has felt like such an advantage early on.
Foxs latest milestone also put him in a familiar class within franchise history, as he became the fourth Rangers defenseman to reach double-digit assists in fewer than 12 games more than once. The more immediate note for the Rangers, though, is how steady he has been in Manhattan, where his point streak has now tied for the longest active run in the NHL. For a team trying to build separation at home, that kind of consistency matters just as much as the final score. [Read more 🡒]