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Rangers are East’s most improved team in latest expert ranking
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- Rangers are East’s most improved team in latest expert ranking
IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect
There's no dispute that the New York Rangers improved themselves via trades and free agency. But how does that improvement compare to how the rest of the NHL? The Athletic says the Blueshirts are the most improved team in the Eastern Conference and No. 2 in the League behind the Nashville Predators .
Writer Dom Luszczyszyn rated all 32 teams on the change in their Net Rating from their current roster to the one they ended the 2025-26 season with (including players acquired at the trade deadline). The Rangers came in at plus-26, one point behind the Predators. One of their Metropolitan Division rivals, the Washington Capitals , were third at plus-23.
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The Rangers traded away Vincent Trocheck , an excellent two-way center and locker-room voice — and Luszczyszyn notes that losing him isn't ideal for a team that's trying to get back to the Stanley Cup Playoffs after back-to-back misses. But he writes that losing Trocheck is more than compensated for by the addition of Pavel Dorofeyev in a trade with the Vegas Golden Knights .
Dorofeyev, who scored 35 and 37 goals in the past two seasons, figures to boost an already potent power play after scoring 20 PPGs for Vegas last season. He should also improve New York's 5-on-5 scoring; the Rangers' 153 5v5 goals tied the Seattle Kraken for 23rd.
Signing veteran forward Oliver Bjorkstrand should also help the middle-six put more goals on the board, Luszczyszyn writes. The 31-year-old managed just 12 goals in 80 games with the Tampa Bay Lightning in 2025-26 — and just three at 5-on-5 — but he reached the 20-goal mark in each of the previous four seasons.
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Bjorkstrand is likely to start the season on a line with Dorofeyev and J.T. Miller , which should put him in position to put last season's struggles behind him.
Rangers are most improved team in East, says The Athletic
But the biggest improvement he (and many Rangers fans) see is on defense — particularly the second defense pairing.
The trade that sent Trocheck to the Utah Mammoth brought back Sean Durzi , a righty-shooting defenseman who can move the puck and quarterback the No. 2 power-play unit. General manager Chris Drury also landed lefty-shooting defenseman Marcus Pettersson in a deal with the Vancouver Canucks . Rangers coach Mike Sullivan knows Pettersson well, having coached him for seven seasons with the Pittsburgh Penguins .
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Pettersson and Durzi figure to form the No. 2 pairing behind Adam Fox and Vladislav Gavrikov while bumping players like Braden Schneider and Matthew Robertson to lesser roles — or making them trade bait. Drury selected five defensemen in the NHL Draft on June 26-27, including first-round pick Alberts Smits, who was regarded as the most NHL-ready defenseman available. He signed Wednesday and could earn time with the Blueshirts this season.
The newest Rangers didn't come cheap. Dorofeyev cost the Rangers first-round picks in 2026 (No. 26) and 2028, plus a third-rounder (No. 92) this year. Pettersson cost them a top-10 protected first-rounder in 2030.
But these were moves the Rangers likely had to make. Igor Shesterkin , one of the NHL's elite goaltenders, is already 30 years old and has six seasons remaining on a contract that carries an average annual value of more than $11.5 million. Adam Fox, one of the NHL's top-10 defensemen, is 28 and has three more seasons left on a deal with an AAV of $9.5 million.
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The moves were risky because of the future draft capital involved, but Luszczyszyn said they were necessary if the Rangers hope to compete while their two best players are near the top of their game.
"There's real blow-up potential given what the Rangers paid to make all that happen with several future firsts on the line," he said. "But it's a price the team probably had to pay with Adam Fox and Igor Shesterkin on the roster; two elite players worth trying to contend with even if the odds of contention are slight.
"The Rangers did enough to get back in the playoff mix next season. Time will tell if they can go beyond that."
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