Rangers 2025-2026 Season Preview

After taking positive steps in their rebuild last season, New York hopes to make some noise.

To the surpise of some, the New York Rangers (40-35-7) took positive steps in the club's rebuilding phase last season. Rookie forwards Logan Cooley and Logan Stankoven were key in the club's top6, while other youngsters such as Dustin Wolf, Ryan Johnson, Jamie Drysdale, Stephen Halliday, Topi Niemela and Ivan Miroshnichenko logged meaningful minutes. Now armed with more depth, New York looks to take the DCHL by storm in 2025-2026. Let's take a look at the Roster: 

Additions: Mika Zibanejad, Matvei Michkov, Vladimir Tarasenko, Marc-Andre Fleury 

The Rangers reworked the club's top6 in an attempt to compete in a very deep and talented Metropolitan divison this coming season. Despite losing Anze Kopitar to Edmonton in free agency, the club changed gears and found Mika Zibanejad to step in as the club's first line center. Zibanejad, 33, inked a five-year contract in the big apple and gives the Rangers a skilled pivot to play with Cooley and another new arrival in Matvei Michkov. 

Speaking of Michkov, he arrives in New York with plenty of fanfare, surely to be in the mix for the Calder Trophy like Cooley before him. He is likely to push Stankoven down the depth chart, but helps round out a top6 forward group surely to create plenty of offense. 

Additionally, winger Vladimir Tarasenko landed in New York on a three-year deal this summer and will join the aformentioned Stankoven and Morgan Frost on line 2. Tarasenko has bounced around the league in recently seasons, but looks to have found a home with the Rangers. 

Lastly, club legend Marc-Andre Fleury also returned to New York. Fleury, now 41, spent parts of three seasons with the Rangers and is the franchise leader in games started (189) and wins (111) for the club. The Rangers have their goaltender of the future in Wolf, but the expectation is that he will split time with Fleury in tandem. Wolf started 51 games last season and at times struggled so with Flower in tow, it should alleviate the young goaltender of some pressure in 2025-2026. 

Rangers Defense Still Under Construction 

While the forward and goaltender groups are likely the strength of the club, the Rangers are still looking to build out a defense corps to augment the rest of the roster. Last season, the Rangers aquired veteran defensemen Esa Lindell from Boston and will add a gifted young blueliner to the group in Artyom Levshunov this coming season. However, the rest of the group is objectively a mixed bag. 

Alec Martinez and Jan Rutta are each another year older, while Jamie Drysdale struggled to find his footing in a top4 role last season. Though the club is still high on his skill-set, Drysdale only mustered 20 points last season and logged a pedestrian -15 plus/minus rating in 67 games played.

Conversely, we may see prospect Nolan Allan make the jump to the big club this season. Allan was aquired in January 2024 in a deal that sent Tyler Seguin to Chicago. Prospect forward Stephen Halliday also came to the Rangers in the return as well. With fewer players to hurdle, it's possible Allan works his way into the Rangers' defense group should injuries allow it. For now, Allan will remain in AHL Hartford. 

Prediction Time 

The Metro divison is strong as it's ever been and that is not likely to change anytime soon. The Devils, Flyers, Hurricanes, Islanders and Blue Jackets all remain quality teams. The Rangers are not in that class yet, but appear to be heading in the right direction. They look poised to be in the mix for the final Wildcard spot in the Eastern Conference this season, as they were last year. Could this be the year they break through? We'd like to think so.