The New York Rangers are about to celebrate their 100th season. Now, at the halfway point of this decade, we can look at five players who have impacted the team the most. Here are the top five Rangers of the 2020s so far.
#5: Adam Fox
Adam Fox was drafted by the Calgary Flames and traded to the Carolina Hurricanes, but the only place he wanted to play was for his childhood team. The Hurricanes traded his rights to the Rangers in April 2019 for two second-round picks, and they have not looked back. From the moment he made his NHL debut in the 2019-20 season, Fox has been by far the best defenseman on the team. In 431 regular-season games, he has 63 goals and 306 assists. He ranks fifth in points by a defenseman since he entered the league, and he is only 27.
It did not take long for the league to recognize his talent. He won the Norris Trophy as the league’s best defenseman for the 2021 Covid-shortened season, his second in the NHL. He has helped the Rangers reach the Conference Final twice, scoring five goals and 39 points in 46 career playoff games. While the team has been mostly successful during his time in New York, Fox can reach another level to help the Rangers become Cup contenders.
#4: Igor Shesterkin
The Rangers have had solid goaltending since 2000. They went from Mike Richter to Henrik Lundqvist, and when it was time for “The King” to give up the crown, Igor Shesterkin took his place as the new “Prince” of New York. He was drafted in the fourth round of the 2014 NHL Draft and dominated in both the Kontinental Hockey League and American Hockey League before getting called up to the Rangers in January 2020.
From the moment he arrived, he was one of the most dominant goalies in the league. He has a career regular-season record of 162-88-22 with a 2.52 goals-against average (GAA) and a .917 save percentage (SV%). His best season was in 2021-22, when he went 36-13-4 with a 2.07 GAA and .935 SV%, which was good enough to win him the Vezina Trophy as the league’s top goaltender and be nominated for the Hart Trophy as league MVP.
Shesterkin has especially proven his worth in the playoffs. In his three playoff runs, he has yet to have a SV% below .927, and he is the main reason the Rangers have two Conference Final appearances over the past four seasons. He has a career playoff record of 23-20-0 with a 2.41 GAA and .928 SV%. He will likely continue to be the backbone of the Rangers for the next eight seasons, after signing a massive extension last season, making him the highest-paid goalie in the league.
#3: Mika Zibanejad
Mika Zibanejad is entering his 10th season as a Ranger. Zibanejad was traded to the Rangers from the Ottawa Senators in July 2016, and it was one of the best trades in franchise history. When he arrived, he was only 23 and still trying to find his way in the league, and he did just that with the Rangers.
He has played 649 games in New York, scoring 250 goals and 589 points. It took him a while to get settled, but when he did, he became the team’s first-line center. His breakout came during the 2019-20 season, when he scored 41 goals and 75 points in 57 games.
Related: The Case for Mika Zibanejad to Be the Rangers’ Third-Line Center This Season
Zibanejad has had some of his best offensive seasons during the 2020s, including scoring 81 points in 2021-22 and 91 points in 2022-23. He was also the team’s best player during their run to the Eastern Conference Final in 2022, when he scored 10 goals and 24 points in 20 playoff games. He scored 16 points in 16 games in their run to the Eastern Conference Final in 2024, but only three goals.
Zibanejad has slowed down a bit in the last two seasons, but overall, he has been one of the Rangers’ best offensive players in the first half of the decade, and if he remains with the team for the rest of his contract, he could go down as one of the top players in franchise history.
#2: Artemi Panarin
Artemi Panarin was one of the best free-agent signings in history. In 2019, he joined the Rangers on a seven-year contract, taking less money than other teams had offered, and helped the Rangers accelerate their rebuild (whether that is a good or bad thing is debatable). He has since proven to be worth every dollar of his contract. In 430 games, he has scored 186 goals and 550 points – the most by any Ranger since he arrived and 119 more points than Zibanejad, who is second on the list, in nine fewer games. In his first season in New York, he was nominated for the Hart Trophy.
He has led the team in points in each of his six seasons with the team, scoring over 90 points four times and over 100 points once. His best season was in 2023-24, when he scored 49 goals and 120 points and helped lead the Rangers to a Presidents’ Trophy finish.
While he has been criticized for his lack of playoff production, he has scored some big overtime winners in the postseason, including a series-clinching goal in Game 7 in 2022. Panarin has been the best offensive player throughout his time in New York, and now the question is whether this will be his last season or if he will negotiate an extension with the team.
#1: Chris Kreider
Although he is no longer on the team, Chris Kreider saved his best seasons as a Ranger for the 2020s. In February 2020, he was on an expiring contract with the team still in a rebuilding phase. Many thought he would be traded by the deadline, but instead, he signed a contract extension.
Since 2019-20, he has played 423 games, scoring 193 goals (the most of any Ranger during this time frame) and 311 points. He played his best hockey after turning 30, and his breakout came during the 2021-22 season, when he scored 52 goals and 77 points in 81 games. Kreider had never scored 30 goals in a season, let alone more than 50. He scored over 30 goals the next two seasons and had a 75-point season in 2023-24.
Kreider is also the franchise’s leading playoff goal-scorer with 48. In 123 playoff games, he has 76 points. He was another key factor in helping the Rangers make the Conference Final in 2022 and 2024, including a Game 6 hat-trick against the Carolina Hurricanes in 2024 that punched the Rangers’ ticket to the final four. No one was more clutch for the team than Kreider. While it’s disappointing that his tenure with the team came to an end this offseason (he was traded to the Anaheim Ducks), there is no doubt that he was New York’s best player through the first half of the 2020s.
The Rangers have seen success this decade, winning the Presidents’ Trophy in 2023-24 and making the playoffs four times. However, the team won’t be successful if its players aren’t successful, and these five players have had the biggest impact on the team in this decade, so far.
