“Regardless of where you are in the standings…there’s always something to play for.” – New York Rangers’ Head Coach Mike Sullivan
The hot streak that the New York Rangers put together by winning six out of nine games from the end of the Olympic break (February 26) to March 14 has cooled off. Since March 14, the Blueshirts have gone 2-5-1.
The only player still riding a hot streak is Mika Zibanejad, who scored his 30th goal of the season on March 22 and is up to 32 as of this article’s writing. That makes 2025-26 the fourth season that Zibanejad has scored 30 goals in his career (all with the Rangers). Zibanejad also leads the team in points with 69 by a large margin, as the Ranger with the second highest point total this season is Alexis Lafrenière with 51.
Thanks to a hot streak that saw him score 15 points in 12 games from the end of the Olympic break to March 19, Lafrenière has moved ahead of Rangers captain J.T. Miller for third on the team’s scoring leaderboard this season. Over almost the same stretch of games, Perreault scored 12 points in 10 games, which has pushed his season point total up to 21 in 41 games.
On the other hand, Miller hasn’t played well recently and it appears as if the recently-turned 33-year-old is still dealing with the upper-body injury he suffered on March 3.
Recently, Head Coach Mike Sullivan was asked by reporters about his captain’s recent struggles and had this to say.
“I know it’s been hard on him. It’s been hard on him because obviously he has high expectations of himself and the group, and when we don’t meet those, I think nobody feels it more than the leaders.”
The Ranger captain has played 12 games with the team since helping Team USA win Gold at the 2026 Winter Olympics and scored just 10 points. Miller also has 46 points in 60 games this season. That’s low productivity for a player who scored 103 points during the 2023-24 season.
While core skaters like Miller, Zibanejad and Adam Fox have struggled to lead the Rangers over the home stretch of the season, bottom six winger Tye Kartye has burst onto the scene. The Canadian whom the Rangers acquired off waivers from the Seattle Kraken in late February, had eight points in 40 games with the Kraken and nine points in 16 games as a Ranger. Kartye has been the spark that the Rangers’ bottom six forward group needed after center Sam Carrick was traded on March 6.
In a small sample size, Kartye has laid a blueprint for how the ideal bottom six forward should play for rookie forwards, Jaroslav Chmelar and Adam Sykora. Kartye’s play is marked by two simple but important skills: skating and checking. When one watches a Ranger game and the third or fourth line is on the ice, Kartye is very visible, skating all over the ice, chasing down the puck carrier in the offensive zone and standing up for his teammates. Those are all positive things that an NHL forward not blessed with great scoring ability is expected to do and Kartye has done them to perfection over his first 15 games on Broadway.
“Every time somebody plays a hockey game there’s an evaluation process, that’s just human nature. So, these players are building a body of work and when we’re making decisions as an organization, we’ll make those decisions based on a body of work. It’s what we know. If what you’re asking is, does performance matter? The answer is yes.” – Mike Sullivan
The Rangers’ second round draft pick in 2022, Adam Sykora was recently called up from the Hartford Wolfpack and made his National Hockey League (NHL) debut on March 25. After an uneventful first NHL game on March 25, Sykora picked up his first NHL goal on March 27 and his second on March 29. These goals showed Sykora has offensive skill that can be tapped into, but he needs to show even more offense in the final eight games of the season to really put his name in the conversation for next season.
Chmelar has been the other young recent addition to the Ranger lineup that has stood out. He skates very well, plays good defense and hustles. While he hasn’t scored much (two goals, one assist in 18 games), he scored his first NHL goal on March 5 and the game-winner on March 14. His greatest attribute is his defensive play and backing this up is that Chmelar has only been on the ice for seven total goals against which is third lowest on the Rangers this year.
While Kartye and Chmelar have played well since being given a shot with the big club, top six winger Will Cuylle has not taken the step forward that the organization envisioned him taking in the first year of his bridge deal. Cuylle has scored 32 points in 72 games this season after scoring 45 points in 82 games a year ago. The Toronto native is 13 points off his pace from last season and there are only 10 games left to play.
One underlying statistic that shows the dip that Cuylle’s game has taken in 2025-26 is Corsi-For percentage (CF%). Corsi is a measurement of how many shot attempts, including misses, blocked shots and shots on target, that a team takes while a certain player is on the ice. Since last season, Cuylle’s CF% has gone down from 49.64 to 47.83 even though he ranks fourth on the team out of 34 skaters who have played for the Rangers this season in shots on goal (139).
The 6-foot-3, 212-pound Cuylle was also thought to be a physical presence whom the Rangers could use to screen the opposing goaltender on the power play but to date he has just eight power play points. Speaking of players who are good at screening the goaltender, J.T. Miller has done a lot of that this season on the power play, but it’s only resulted in 14 points. Both players’ power play production pale in comparison to the Rangers’ leader in power play points this season, Mika Zibanejad who has scored 31 points on the man advantage.
Dylan Garand, a lifetime AHL goalie and former fourth round draft pick in 2020, was called up in late March and has made two starts. The British Columbia, Canada native made 35 saves against the Winnipeg Jets on March 22 but failed to get the win in a shootout. Garand then earned his first NHL win on March 27 at Madison Square Garden. In his first NHL win, Garand made 27 saves and allowed just one goal.
Then there is Drew Fortescue, the New Yorker who was drafted in the third round in 2023 by the Rangers, made his NHL debut recently and had an assist for his first NHL point in that same game. Fortescue has some maturing to do both physically and mentally as he is just 20 years old, but at 6-foot-1 possesses a good frame for an NHL defenseman. If he can put the mental side of the game together, specifically, of being able to react to a faster pace of play than he was used to in college, then he could turn into a solid player on Broadway.
Overall, general manager Chris Drury has been evaluating each and every player on this Rangers team since the “letter 2.0” went out in January, and that’s how it should be. Every player is going to have to earn their way on to the roster for 2026-27 by playing well for the remainder of this season. The future may be brighter than people realize with Fortescue and Matthew Robertson on the blueline and Lafreniere, Perreault, Chmelar and Sykora up front. Meanwhile, fans can only hope that veterans, Cuylle and Miller can put this season behind them and rebound strongly next season.
