has a glut of young forwards<\/a> who finished the season on the NHL roster \u2014 Jaroslav Chmela\u0159, Adam Edstr\u00f6m, Tye Kartye, Noah Laba, Matt Rempe and Adam S\u00fdkora \u2014 and will be vying for those spots in the fall.<\/p>\nThe bigger holes appear to be in the top six, where the Rangers are short at least one or two pieces and could lose another if they trade Vincent Trocheck. They ranked 23rd in the league in goals per game this season with an average of 2.87, and tied a franchise low by being shut out 10 times. And now they\u2019re moving forward without Artemi Panarin, who led the team in scoring each of the previous six seasons before being traded to the Los Angeles Kings on Feb. 4.<\/p>\n
\u201cI do think we have the makings of guys that can finish and produce offense for us,\u201d said Sullivan, who named Miller, Trocheck, Zibanejad, Will Cuylle and Alexis Lafreni\u00e8re. \u201cObviously, when you look at our overall year, that was one of our challenges. I think we made strides on the other side of the puck, in particular in the defensive zone. Our coaches were encouraged with the structure that we set out to put in place and the buy-in that we got from the players. \u2026 But I do think the offensive side is something that we have to look to improve on, and that can happen a number of different ways.\u201d<\/p>\n
Drury leaves door open for top-six addition<\/p>\n
When asked for his own thoughts on the Rangers\u2019 primary needs, Drury deferred to Sullivan.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought those were two good comments by him and two specific areas,\u201d he said, referring to Sullivan\u2019s mention of puck-moving defensemen and bottom-six forwards.<\/p>\n
Drury, who declined a request from the New York chapter of the Professional Hockey Writers Association to hold his end-of-season interview in person, was lighter on specifics during his 14-minute Zoom call with reporters. But he seemed to leave the door open when asked whether he thinks the Rangers have enough firepower in the top six.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re always looking at tweaking and looking at ways to get more scoring,\u201d he said. \u201cNot relying on one person \u2014 spreading out the scoring \u2014 is always a good way to look at things, and we had some success that way down the stretch.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut again, as far as scoring and looking at the top six, I do think we have a lot of really good players in the top six that got a lot more opportunity down the stretch and produced at a good rate.\u201d<\/p>\n
Shesterkin believes he \u2018could play way better\u2019<\/p>\n
Igor Shesterkin might not have played at his 2021-22 Vezina Trophy-winning level, but he still finished the season with a .912 save percentage, tied for fourth in the league. Only Logan Thompson, Ilya Sorokin, Jeremy Swayman and Andrei Vasilevskiy finished ahead of him in goals saved above expected, per Evolving-Hockey.<\/p>\n
None of the numbers made Shesterkin feel satisfied with his year.<\/p>\n
\u201cI could play way better, for sure,\u201d he said. \u201cI was a little bit shocked when I checked my numbers. I was a little bit upset about it, but still it was top-four, top-five (in save percentage). I cannot say that\u2019s pretty good, but still.\u201d<\/p>\n
Several Rangers could appear at World Championships<\/p>\n
The Rangers will likely have multiple representatives at the IIHF World Championships this summer. Zibanejad and Miller \u2014 both of whom were at the Olympics \u2014 said they won\u2019t go to the tournament, but it could provide younger players with an opportunity to play in big games.<\/p>\n
\u201cUltimately, it\u2019s the players\u2019 decision: It\u2019s their time, it\u2019s their family time,\u201d Drury said. \u201cI try not to push a player either way.\u201d<\/p>\n
S\u00fdkora (Slovakia) said he will join the Slovakian National Team in a week and try to make the team. He was at last summer\u2019s World Championships, so it\u2019s likely he\u2019ll make the team again. Chmela\u0159 (Czechia) said he would love to represent his country.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will see if I get the call, but I hope I\u2019ll get the chance to fight for the team,\u201d Chmela\u0159 said.<\/p>\n
Noah Laba said he talked to Team USA about potentially playing at the tournament, but isn\u2019t yet sure if he will. Gabe Perreault also talked to the Team USA brass and said he \u201cthought about it, but I\u2019m not going to be going.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s a big summer for me,\u201d the rookie forward added. \u201cI want to spend more time in the gym and be able to put some more strength on. I think that was a bigger thing that I needed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Will Cuylle represented Canada at the 2025 World Championships. He hasn\u2019t decided yet whether he\u2019ll go this summer. Goalie Dylan Garand was also on Canada\u2019s roster last summer.<\/p>\n
\u201cI still haven\u2019t heard anything, so that\u2019s probably not a good sign,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Lafreni\u00e8re said he also hasn\u2019t had any conversations with Team Canada yet. Asked if he has an interest in going, he said, \u201cYeah, but we\u2019ll see.\u201d<\/p>\n
Of all the Rangers, only Urho Vaakanainen is already named to a World Championship roster. He\u2019ll play for a Finnish team that also includes Florida center Aleksander Barkov, who is returning from a torn ACL.<\/p>\n
Rempe confident in thumb improvement<\/p>\n
Matt Rempe\u2019s season was derailed in his ninth game of the season. During a fight with Ryan Reaves, his left thumb got stuck in the Sharks forward\u2019s jersey and broke in multiple places, necessitating surgery. He made a pair of attempted returns<\/a> but didn\u2019t feel like himself in game action, in part because he had trouble gripping his stick. With the thumb not healing the way the doctors wanted following the first surgery, Rempe went through a second procedure in February. That ended a season in which he played 26 games and had only one point.<\/p>\nRempe said he\u2019s \u201cvery confident\u201d his thumb will be 100 percent by training camp.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow it\u2019s more getting my forearm strength back, getting my grip strength back,\u201d he said. \u201cBut I can do everything now.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 23-year-old will have added competition for playing time with the emergence of Kartye, Chmela\u0159 and S\u00fdkora as bottom-six options.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou want to earn your spot,\u201d Rempe said. \u201cI\u2019ve got to come to camp, and I\u2019m going to earn it. I\u2019m going to work my bag off all summer.\u201d<\/p>\n
Drury, staff preparing for top-five selection<\/p>\n
With Calgary\u2019s win against the Kings on Thursday, the Rangers clinched the third-best odds for the No. 1 pick in this summer\u2019s draft (11.5 percent) and guaranteed themselves a top-five selection. Along with the top-five pick, the Rangers have 11 total selections, their most since 2004, including another late first-round selection courtesy of the K\u2019Andre Miller trade.<\/p>\n
The Rangers traded their top-13 protected 2025 first-round pick in the J.T. Miller deal. They ended up getting the No. 12 selection, but the front office chose to still give that pick up to Pittsburgh (via Vancouver) rather than risk losing the 2026 pick. It\u2019s a decision Drury said Friday he\u2019s \u201ccertainly glad\u201d about.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can tell you, we\u2019re extremely prepared,\u201d he said. \u201cI have a lot of faith in (director of amateur scouting) John Lilley and his amateur staff. They worked tirelessly all over the world to get the list in order and make sure we\u2019re making good picks \u2014 not only with that pick, but every other pick we have this coming year.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TARRYTOWN, N.Y. \u2014 While many New York Rangers are heading into the long summer with uncertain futures, Mika…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":555939,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5111],"tags":[5,3328,35,5190,5193,4,36],"class_list":{"0":"post-555938","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-rangers","8":"tag-hockey","9":"tag-new-york","10":"tag-new-york-rangers","11":"tag-newyork","12":"tag-newyorkrangers","13":"tag-nhl","14":"tag-rangers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116431006923912822","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555938","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=555938"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555938\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/555939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=555938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=555938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=555938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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