The Rangers’ offseason has already changed the conversation around their offense, and the big question now is what the top end of the lineup looks like when 2026-27 gets here. Mike Sullivan has a few ways to arrange the pieces, but for these projections, the assumption is that he leans into the chemistry that showed up late last season and keeps Mika Zibanejad between Alexis Lafrenière and Gabe Perreault.
That trio gives the Rangers a clear starting point, but Pavel Dorofeyev is part of the picture too. He could wind up on the top line and push Lafrenière out of that spot, even if the expectation here is that Sullivan still wants to keep the Lafrenière-Perreault connection intact.
Zibanejad is the safest bet of the group to drive the offense. After a down season that brought plenty of heat from the fan base, he responded in 2025-26 with 78 points, 34 goals and 44 assists, and he also took on more of a leadership role with a young Rangers team.
He found his old power-play comfort zone again, especially in the left circle, and now he’s set to carry a heavy workload as the top-line center at 33. With more offensive help around him and another year with those younger wingers, there’s little reason to project a step back.
He should lead the Rangers in goals and has a real shot to push close to 80 points again. Prediction: 36 goals, 45 assists, 81 points.
Lafrenière’s arc is more complicated, but last season gave the Rangers something concrete to build on. After Artemi Panarin’s departure, the former No. 1 overall pick produced far more consistently, finishing the final 29 games with 28 points on 14 goals and 14 assists.
He looked more willing to drive play himself, did a better job finding space around the net, and started to look more comfortable as the season wore on. That stretch also helped establish his connection with Zibanejad and Perreault.
Add in the possibility of a bigger role on the first power play, and the case for a jump in production gets stronger. This isn’t framed as the year he becomes the franchise centerpiece people once imagined, but it could be the year he proves he belongs as a legitimate top-six forward.
Prediction: 30 goals, 36 assists, 66 points.
Perreault is the wild card with the most upside. The advice heading into last season was to keep expectations realistic, but he did enough to make that feel a little too cautious now.
His vision stood out, and the playmaking flashes were strong enough to hint at a player who can become one of the better passers in the league. The comparison to Nikita Kucherov is still a big swing this early, but the tools are clearly there.
Perreault’s chemistry with Lafrenière was one of the brighter developments down the stretch, and that should carry over if Sullivan keeps them together. The biggest limiter is power-play opportunity, since breaking into the first unit could be tough with veterans ahead of him.
Still, at five-on-five, he should keep finding the scoresheet. Prediction: 17 goals, 33 assists, 50 points.
Dorofeyev brings a different kind of intrigue. The newly acquired sniper could fit on the top line, though the lean here is that Sullivan gives Lafrenière and Perreault more runway together first.
Dorofeyev arrives from Vegas, where he was playing alongside Jack Eichel, Mark Stone, Mitch Marner and Shea Theodore, and that kind of setup naturally raises the question of how much of his production can travel with him. He can shoot the puck, but there are real questions about how much offense he can create at five-on-five without elite playmakers feeding him.
If that part of his game lags, the pressure will build. The first power-play unit should give him chances, and he should score at a solid rate, but the expectations around him may be bigger than the Rangers’ roster can support.
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