Recent Season Projection Highlights Significant Improvements for NY Rangers

How much have the New York Rangers been able to improve this summer?

NY Rangers president and general manager Chris Drury speaks during a press conference to introduce new head coach Mike Sullivan at the MSG Training Center in Tarrytown, New York May 8, 2025. / USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect

As the shortened preseason and training camp continue on, the New York Rangers will have already played in half of the preseason games by the end of Tuesday night. 

With the start of the regular season kicking off on September 29th on the road against the Boston Bruins, the Rangers don’t have much time left to prepare. It will be interesting to see how this impacts New York, but teams around the league as well. 

The Rangers have a lot of new faces on the roster, which makes things a bit trickier in terms of being sharp for the regular season. A longer training camp and preseason likely have benefited New York, but there is a lot of new talent on the roster that should result in improvements despite this. 

The trio of Shayna Goldman, Harman Dayal and Dom Luszczyszyn from The Athletic (subscription required) recently projected what the 2026-27 campaign would look like for the Rangers. After a strong summer, the prediction of 92 points gives them a decent shot at making the playoffs. 

Reason to be Optimistic

Jun 14, 2026; Las Vegas, Nevada, USA; Carolina Hurricanes goaltender Brandon Bussi (32) defends against Vegas Golden Knights right wing Pavel Dorofeyev (16) during the first period in game six of the 2026 Stanley Cup Final at T-Mobile Arena. Mandatory Credit: Stephen R. Sylvanie-Imagn Images / IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

With the projection of 92 points, the Rangers should be pretty pleased with how that outlook is currently. This is a team that completely reshaped their roster over the summer, and with all of the new faces, it is a bit hard to predict what the upcoming campaign might look like. 

This was a team that just came in last place in the Eastern Conference, but the goal will be to contend this coming campaign. Due to a plethora of good additions, there is reason to believe that they can pull it off. 

At forward, the team most notably added Pavel Dorofeyev up front. The talented 25-year-old winger has scored over 30 goals in each of the last two seasons and will bring great scoring ability to the top six of the Rangers. 

Furthermore, the team also added some good pieces in Eeli Tolvanen and Oliver Bjorkstrand to round out the top nine. On the blueline, the additions of Sean Durzi and Marcus Pettersson give the team a new duo on the second pair of the blueline. 

Also, with the fifth overall pick, they were able to add Alberts Smits. The talented young defenseman looks like he is going to have a real chance to be starting on the left side of the third pair alongside Braden Schneider. 

Overall, it was a really strong offseason, and there is reason to believe that the team is going to be a playoff contender.