Two games: That’s all that remains in the 2025-26 season for the New York Rangers.
A season that began with some level of hope due to a new coach and philosophy, fell apart, partially impacted by injuries but mostly by poor play. New York is once again looking at an offseason with more questions than answers – see below -after they play out the string in Florida. Both games could have meaning, depending on how the ping-pong balls fall (see #xx below), contributing to the weirdness of this season.
Rangers finishing up the schedule: Clarity on Fortescue
Drew Fortescue was scratched Saturday. While catching up on all the comments post that news breaking, I am glad additional information then came out to quiet the masses. Fortescue sitting made all the sense in the world for rights retention and next contract start date for New York. In a perfect world, hopefully the team and his agent explained all this to him before he signed and/or prior to the search Saturday, but who knows. In addition, hopefully the organization is smart and finds a way to give him the $80,000 bonus he would’ve gotten after 10 games played. He can max out at nine if he plays tonight and Wednesday.
Mollie Walker and others added context to the scratch, providing rationale for the decision: “By playing fewer than 10 games this season, Fortescue will fall into the 10.2(c) restricted free agent category and won’t be eligible for an offer sheet or salary arbitration at the end of his ELC. Players aged 20 or older at the time they sign their ELC earn a year of pro experience by playing 10 or more professional games in any league while under an NHL contract, per CBA.”
In short, New York keeps Fortescue under his ELC for one more season, resulting him remaining under team control longer. He likely will start next season in Hartford, and if promoted, stays on his ELC even after next season.
Rangers Q & A
As noted above, this offseason, once again, has more questions than answers as of this moment. I plan to again have the top-20 to 25 questions that we will take in what will be a very long offseason again. As part of that endeavor, I will be asking for your assistance again to provide me any questions you have. I will group some of those together thematically while others may just be a one-off received. Happy to go with more than 25 questions if we land there, as I presume most of you agree this extended offseason is a critical one for the team’s future and how long the “retool” lasts.
Please provide your questions as a comment. Send to me directly as a message or by email or text or twitter etc. Thanks in advance for your help.
Draft lottery looms
if someone would have told you prior to the season that Florida and New York were battling for one of the worst records in the Eastern Conference and between the third and seventh best lottery odds, would you have believed them, Well, here is where we are. Vancouver has long locked up the worst record in the West and the league overall and has the best lottery odds. Chicago is in a similar position as the second worst team in the West and overall, then nothing is finalized.
Calgary’s win Sunday pushed them to fourth best odds, dropping New York to third, due to more regulation wins. The maximum number of points the Rangers can finish with is 79, meaning they could place anywhere from third to sixth depending on what the Flames, Maple Leafs and Kraken do in their final contests of the season. Putting it simply, if the Blueshirts drop their final two games in regulation, they will have the third best lottery odds. Two overtime or shootout losses and the “worst” they could place is fourth overall.
Just because the finish in the top-three doesn’t mean they will pick in the top-three, as we have seen in the past. Play the games as they should be played, allowing the kids to see consistent ice time to help accelerate their development. Two games left and then the offseason starts.
In conjunction with the upcoming draft, because New York has two picks high in the draft and because they are not in the postseason, I was thinking of running a reader selected mock draft with the readers picking a team to make the pick. I will provide more information down the road, but that all depends if we get enough interest. Please let me know if you have any interest in taking a team in the mock draft.
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