The New York Rangers have had a busy offseason, and now that most of the dust has settled, it is time to look forward to next season. With summer rolling along, it is never too early to come up with some predictions for how next season will go.
Here are three of them.
Rangers return to playoffs
It was all a dream. A terrible, nightmare-ish dream. The 2024-25 season will have no residual effect on the future plans of this franchise, and the 2025-26 season will prove that. In a comeback for the ages, the Rangers eradicate their past demons and make it back to the Stanley Cup playoffs.
The new additions will help, especially Vladislav Gavrikov, whom we will get to later in this article. Scott Morrow will prove himself as a worthy third-pair D-man that might even see some time on the second-pairing as well. But it is the core group, the same core group that won a Presidents' Trophy, that will pull through the most.
Artemi Panarin is in a contract year, and now is the time to prove that he was, in fact, worth every cent of his $11.642 million AAV contract. The Rangers should give their all to keep him following next season, but with some bigger fish hitting free agency, this could be the end of the road for the Breadman.
Shesterkin returns to form
The 2024-25 campaign was not a terrible one for goaltender Igor Shesterkin. In hindsight, the team around him failed him for a solid year, which is truly a shame when looking at his career as a whole. So, to say he returns to form next season is really saying that he will have the stats to back up how great he is.
Last season, Shesterkin had a record of 27-29-5. It is the first time in his career with a losing record. This is coupled with a save percentage of .905 and a Goals Against Average of 2.86. There are some teams that would kill to call that their starting goaltenders' best stuff, but that was Shesterkin's worst numbers of his career thus far.
But, go further down the statline and you see six shutouts which is tied for a career-high. Additionally, even with a pretty serious injury in the middle of the season, he had the most starts of his career with 61 starts. With a blank slate and a newly-formed defensive unit in front of him, 2025-26 should go a lot differently for him and the Rangers.
Gavrikov is the answer to defensive problems
When the 2025-26 season is all said and done, we will all look back on the free agency period and revel in the fact that the Rangers went out and grabbed the right guy to fix their defensive unit. Gavrikov will be a fantastic fit with potential future captain, Adam Fox.
The $7 million AAV player comes to the bright lights of Broadway with an incredible amount of hype and expectation. A lot is riding on him to help right the ship, and to finally be an adequate and reliable partner for Fox. Not to say that Ryan Lindgren was not any of those things, but his consistent aggressive playstyle caused him to miss more then he should have. Gavrikov is a defensive-first guy, with that ability to still score the puck.