The New York Rangers will play their final game of the 2025-26 season later tonight against the Tampa Bay Lightning. A season that began with playoff hopes will end with the team having better odds to win the first-overall pick than any other Eastern Conference team. The campaign was filled with ups and downs, and now that it is coming to an end, it’s time to reflect on the season that was. Here, we will to break down what happened to the Rangers this season and break the season up into three different parts.
Part One: Early Season Struggles
After the disaster that was last season, the Rangers came into this season looking to put that behind them and wanted to find their way back to the playoffs. Although they were by no means a Stanley Cup favorite going into the season, many expected them to at least be in contention for a playoff spot. The team had just hired Mike Sullivan as new head coach and made a massive free agent signing in Vladislav Gavrikov. J.T. Miller was named captain, and he wanted to bring a “No B.S.” attitude to the team. However, the season started off about as poorly as it could have.
The Rangers were shut out in their home opener against Sullivan’s former team, the Pittsburgh Penguins. They were then shut out in their next two home games, and it wasn’t until their fourth home game of the season that they scored their first goal at Madison Square Garden. This was a major theme for the early part of the season: They would play great defense and get great goaltending, but could not score a goal if their life depended on it. As the new year rolled around, the Rangers found themselves still in contention for a wild-card spot, but fans didn’t have hope they could get the job done.
Part Two: “The Letter” 2.0 Through the Trade Deadline
2026 started off with a massive 5-1 win over the Florida Panthers at the NHL Winter Classic. Many thought this game could be the turning point of the season, but it was the very next game that sealed the Rangers’ fate for the rest of the season. In one game, they lost Igor Shesterkin and Adam Fox to injuries that would keep them out for the next month. This started the downward spiral, and just a few weeks after these injuries, general manager Chris Drury put out a letter stating that while the team needed to go through a retooling phase, a full-on rebuild was not in the plans.
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One player who fans knew would be gone after the letter was released was Artemi Panarin as he was a pending unrestricted free agent and contract talks were not going anywhere. Minutes before the Winter Olympic roster freeze, Panarin was traded to the Los Angeles Kings for Liam Greentree, a 2026 conditional third-round pick, and a 2028 conditional fourth-round pick. While it might not seem like a great return for the caliber of player Panarin is, he had full control over what team he wanted to go to. Panarin signed a two-year contract extension with the Kings and helped them clinch a playoff spot earlier this week.
Other names were rumored to be on the move as the 2026 Trade Deadline got closer. Two of the most-mentioned were Vincent Trocheck and Braden Schneider. They were the players who had the most value, and Drury set a high price for both of them that no other team was willing to match. He opted to keep both players, and the only other players traded besides Panarin were Sam Carrick, Carson Soucy, and Brennan Othmann. Keep an eye on both Trocheck and Schneider this offseason, as both players could still be — and will likely be — on the move as Drury continues the retool.
Part Three: Youth Giving Fans Some Hope for the Future
Once the deadline passed, it seemed the players got a weight lifted off their shoulders and the team looked like they were having fun playing hockey again. Mika Zibanejad and Alexis Lafreniere have both had great seasons and really upped their games after the Olympic break, but it’s been the rookies who have come up and played well that have given the fans some hope for the future. One player in particular is Gabe Perreault, who has played well on a line with Zibanejad and Lafreniere.
He’s gotten the chance to be a consistent top-six player for most of the season, and he has played better than many hoped he would, with 11 goals and 26 points in 48 games. Perreault seems like he will be a key piece for the Rangers going forward, and him getting this experience right will only help his game grow.
Other younger players throughout the season have also stepped into the lineup and have played well, including Noah Laba, who made the team out of training camp and has been with the team all season long. Tye Kartye, Adam Sykora, and Jaroslav Chmelar have brought speed and skill to the bottom six.
On defense, Matthew Robertson, who spent the last four seasons in the American Hockey League and looked like he might not be an NHL player, earned his spot this season and looks like he could be a solid bottom-pairing defenseman going forward. Even players like Drew Fortescue and Dylan Garand have contributed strong play even though they haven’t gotten into many games. When all hope looked lost, these young players have shown that maybe the Rangers’ future isn’t so dark after all.
While this season didn’t go in the direction the Rangers or the fans wanted or thought it would go, it might have been for the best. The Rangers couldn’t get the job done with the core players they had, and moving on from some of them and going in a younger direction might be in the team’s best interest if they want to be a contender in a few years. This season definitely had its dark moments, and it seemed like nothing could go the Rangers’ way. However, with the way the team has been playing to end the season and with the youth showing signs of promise, the Rangers’ future could be brighter than what many thought even just a few months ago.
