The New York Rangers are going to be one of the more interesting teams to follow this season. Two seasons ago, this team won the Presidents’ Trophy and made it to Game 6 of the Eastern Conference Final. Last season, they were supposed to build off that success, but they instead went on a downward spiral that tanked their season, and they missed the playoffs completely. Now, after a full offseason of rest, trades, and free agent signings, the Rangers are hoping for better luck this season. In this piece, we are going to go over three key storylines to follow, and maybe when the season is over, we can look back on these and figure out if they had a positive or negative impact on the team throughout the season.
Are the Players Able to Put Last Season Behind Them?
Last season was a complete and utter disaster for the Rangers and their fanbase. A season that started with hope quickly turned into one full of negativity and poor play. So many players who had been part of the team for years, like Barclay Goodrow, Kaapo Kakko, Filip Chytil, and even the captain, Jacob Trouba, were sent out the door, and now, the core of the team looks completely different. So much off-ice drama impacted how they performed on the ice, and it led to them missing the playoffs a season after winning the Presidents’ Trophy as the best regular-season team in the league. They now hold the honor of being the only franchise to have two different teams go from best in the regular season to missing the playoffs, the 1992-93 and 2024-25 Rangers.
Changes continued to be made this offseason, with the trades of Chris Kreider and K’Andre Miller and the free agent signing of Vladislav Gavrikov. This team on paper looks very different from the one that started last season, and now the big question is, can the players who are returning from last season put that behind them as this season begins? So many of the top players underperformed for a majority of last season, and if this team wants any chance of getting back to the playoffs, they are going to need these players to be at their best from day one. Last season seemed like an anomaly compared to how they have played over the past few seasons, so there is hope that they will bounce back, but it all depends on whether these players can put the drama behind them and move forward.
Will Mika Zibanejad Be Playing Center or Winger?
One of the most disappointing players on the entire team last season was Mika Zibanejad. For the first half of the season, he looked like a shell of the player he used to be. He wasn’t scoring goals, wasn’t playing well defensively, and overall, he just wasn’t making an impact like he had done so many times before. It wasn’t until the Rangers traded for J.T. Miller that Zibanejad looked like his former self. While he has played center his entire career, the decision was made to move him to the right wing on Miller’s line, and from there, he never looked back. Before the trade, he had nine goals and 29 points. After he was moved to the right wing, he scored 11 goals and 33 points in 32 games to end the season. While it would’ve been nice to see him playing to that level earlier in the season, he ended on a high note, and now, going into this season, it seems like he has found a spot where he is the most comfortable.
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Although he seemed comfortable on the right wing, with a new head coach in Mike Sullivan coming in, the question at least to start the season is whether he will have Zibanejad start on the wing or move back to center, so the Rangers can have him, Miller, and Vincent Trocheck as their top three centers. If he does stay on the wing, the center depth on the team isn’t that great after Miller and Trocheck, so it will make the bottom six a much weaker group. However, if he does move back to center, will it impact his play again due to him having more responsibility as the center of his own line? It is going to be very interesting to see where he slots into the lineup on opening night, and if one spot doesn’t work out for him, he could also move to the other position to see how it plays out.
How Will Igor Shesterkin & Alexis Lafreniere Perform in the First Season of Their New Contracts?
Two players who will have the most eyes on them going into this season are Igor Shesterkin and Alexis Lafreniere. For Shesterkin, this will be the first season of his new contract that pays him $11.5 million per season, and he is now the highest-paid goalie in the entire league. Fans have been split on the decision to give him this contract, as while many believe that he is the main reason why the Rangers win most of their games, some feel he isn’t consistent enough to be making this amount of money.
Shesterkin has not been able to get back to the numbers he had during his Vezina Trophy-winning season back in 2021-22, when he had a record of 36-13-4 with a 2.07 goals-against average (GAA) and a .935 save percentage (SV%). Those numbers have declined in the three seasons since, with a 2.48, 2.56, and 2.86 GAA, and a .916, .913, and a .905 SV% to go along with it. If he wants to prove that he is worth this contract, he is going to need to have a better season, and he needs to play more consistently at a high level rather than going through multiple cold stretches throughout the season like he has done in the past.
For Lafreniere, last season could not have gone much worse after the breakout season he had prior. In 2023-24, he scored 28 goals and 57 points, and many thought he was finally emerging into the player that they hoped he would be. He got off to a hot start and was given a seven-year extension worth $7.45 million per season. After that extension was signed, the entire season went downhill for the team, and he finished with only 17 goals and 45 points in a full 82-game season. He is going to be getting top-six minutes again, and with Kreider gone, he should be moved up to the top power-play unit. If these things happen, there is no excuse for him anymore, and he is going to have to perform if the Rangers want to be a better team this season. If he can’t live up to this contract, it might go down as one of the worst in the league today.
The Rangers have aspirations of getting back to the playoffs after last season’s disaster, and if they are going to do that, they are going to need every player on the roster to have a better season. With this core only getting older, this is the time for them to try and make a push for the Stanley Cup. With there being so many things that happen with a team throughout a season, these are just three storylines to follow as we get closer to the season beginning.
