Rangers report card: Grading every defenseman and goalie, from Adam Fox to Jonathan Quick

New York Times

06-05-2025

NEW YORK — The Rangers' group of defensemen changed drastically throughout the season. President and general manager Chris Drury shipped out captain Jacob Trouba and longtime Ranger Ryan Lindgren. In came Will Borgen, Carson Soucy and Urho Vaakanainen, all of whom could be in Mike Sullivan's opening-night lineup.
Overall, the team's group of defensemen had a difficult 2024-25. With Sullivan coming in and ex-coach Peter Laviolette and Phil Housley both fired, all will have new sets of eyes on them entering 2025-26.
Before we get going on grades, here's a reminder about the scale: It's all based on expectation. A B grade means something different for Adam Fox than it does for Urho Vaakanainen.
A: The player was at a career-best level. B: The player had a good season based on their standards. C: The player had an acceptable season but perhaps left you wanting a little more. D: The player had a disappointing season.
F: The player had a worst-case scenario season.
This article also goes over the team's goalies from 2024-25. Defensemen had to play at least 30 games and finish the year with the franchise to qualify for grades. Goalies had to play a minimum of 20 games. Let's dig in.
Defensemen
Adam Fox: B-
74 games, 10 goals, 51 assists, 61 points, +9
Fox's numbers-counting stats took a downturn, as did those of many Rangers. The lackluster power play played a major role in that for Fox. He actually had more even-strength points this season (40) than in 2023-24 (38) despite having 12 fewer points overall. Obviously, Fox was part of the power play, and everyone on that unit deserves some blame, so that factors into his grade. But his five-on-five numbers were still strong, even though coach Peter Laviolette often paired him with Ryan Lindgren and Carson Soucy, both of whom struggled at points throughout the season. He led the team in Net Rating, according to colleague Dom Luszczyszyn's model, and in expected goal share, according to Natural Stat Trick.
When Fox played on a pairing with K'Andre Miller, his numbers were excellent. The Rangers had 64.72 percent of the expected goal share in 314 minutes with that pair on the ice at five-on-five, according to Natural Stat Trick, which was the best mark of any pair in the NHL that played at least 200 minutes. New York also outscored opponents 19-12 when Fox and Miller were together. Sullivan will have to consider keeping them together more consistently next season, though he could face a similar dilemma as Laviolette did: Do they need to be split up to balance out the defensive pairs?
K'Andre Miller: C-
74 games, 7 goals, 20 assists, 27 points, +0
The 25-year-old Miller had a rough start to the season, but his production picked up when the calendar flipped to 2025. He had five goals and 21 points in the last 44 games of the year. New York still had a sub-50-percent five-on-five expected goal share with Miller on the ice in those games, according to Natural Stat Trick, but he and Will Borgen often played against other teams' top players. Miller finished the year with the second-toughest quality of offensive competition, according to Hockey Stat Cards. Only Borgen had harder minutes.
Miller's season is hard to grade because of what he's shown in the past. He had a 43-point season in 2022-23, and almost all that production came at even strength. If that's the standard, then this season is disappointing, but putting him in the D range felt too harsh based on how he finished the year and the quality of opponents he faced. He also played nearly 22 minutes a night, second only to Fox.
Miller is a restricted free agent this summer. He's going to be an interesting case with the Rangers' limited salary-cap flexibility. For any developmental frustrations he's had, New York's defensive corps can't really afford to lose him.
Braden Schneider: B-
80 games, 6 goals, 15 assists, 21 points, +9
Schneider, a 2020 first-round pick, has consistently played more and taken on more responsibility, such as penalty killing, each year he's been in the NHL. His ice time per game went up to 17:52 per game this season, nearly a two-minute increase from 2023-24, and he had a Net Rating in line with his $2.2 million cap hit, according to Luszczyszyn's Net Rating model. Still, his game has yet to take the dramatic jump the Rangers have hoped for. He still had some of the easiest five-on-five minutes on the team based on quality of offensive competition, according to Hockey Stat Cards, so Laviolette did not yet trust him in big defensive situations. Perhaps that will change under Sullivan.
Schneider had surgery at the end of the season to repair a torn labrum. He first suffered the injury in the 2022-23 season and could play through it, but it's gotten worse over time. He felt it made him more hesitant to use his physicality in 2024-25. He should be ready for the 2025-26 season.
Schneider is still only 23. Given his youth, a new coaching staff potentially giving him more opportunity and a clean bill of health, there's reason to believe his game can take a jump next season.
Urho Vaakanainen: B
46 games, 2 goals, 13 assists, 15 points, +8
Vaakanainen, 26, came to the Rangers in the Jacob Trouba trade. He and Schneider played together much of the second half of the season. A Boston first-round pick in 2017, Vaakanainen looks capable of being a No. 6 or No. 7 defenseman on a good team. Drury saw enough to extend him for $1.55 million annually through 2026-27.
Vaakanainen set a career high in points despite playing 17 fewer games than with the Ducks in 2023-24. His underlying numbers weren't special — New York had only 44.1 percent of the expected goal share with him on the ice at five-on-five, per Natural Stat Trick — but he gave the Rangers about what they could've hoped.
Will Borgen: C+
51 games, 4 goals, 9 assists, 13 points, +9
Drury bet big on Borgen, acquiring him in a package for 2019 No. 2 pick Kaapo Kakko and then extending him through 2029-30 at $4.1 million average annual value. Laviolette used Borgen with Miller frequently against tough competition. He played 18:18 a game after coming to the Rangers, more than 40 seconds higher than his previous career high in ice time per game (17:35 in 2023-24 with Seattle).
Among defensemen who played at least 40 games for the Rangers in 2024-25, only Vaakanainen had a lower expected goals rate than Borgen (45.4 percent). Some of that is because Borgen was playing the most difficult minutes on the team, which boosts his grade. Overall, the start to his Rangers tenure went decently but wasn't quite enough to push him into the B range.
Zac Jones: C
46 games, 1 goal, 10 assists, 11 points, +0
Coming in and out of the lineup did not do Jones any favors this season, so the coaching staff has to wear his grade as much as he does. His points-per-60 minutes rate went down from 2023-24, which isn't ideal given he was not playing against top competition on other teams. His expected goals rate was still solid compared to his teammates (47.79 percent, fifth on the team, per Natural Stat Trick), but his failure to become a lineup regular drops his grade to a C. If Laviolette's staff had stuck with him at points, maybe his grade — and outlook with the franchise going forward — would be different. He's now entering restricted free agency.
Here are quick thoughts on the defensemen who played games for the Rangers this season but did not qualify for grades.
Incomplete
Carson Soucy: Acquired for a 2025 third-round pick at the deadline, Soucy is on the books for $3.25 million next season. His transition to New York wasn't seamless after a difficult start to the season with the Canucks: Laviolette scratched him three times, and Soucy averaged only 16:14 a night in 16 Rangers games. New York will need him to revert to his form from his last season in Seattle (2022-23) and first season in Vancouver (2023-24) for the trade to look worthwhile.
Calvin de Haan: He played only three games and made his displeasure known, both with an exchange heading off the ice in April and in his end-of-season interview on breakup day.
Chad Ruhwedel: The Rangers brought in Ruhwedel at the 2024 deadline for a 2027 fourth-round pick. The veteran has played only 10 games with New York since and spent almost all of this past season in Hartford.
Connor Mackey: Mackey energized the Rangers with a fight in the 2023-24 season. He tried to do the same this season but did not get the same results. This season's fight came in the first game of a 1-7-0 stretch.
Matthew Robertson: A 2019 second-round pick, Robertson had to wait a long time to make his NHL debut. He finally got in when Schneider opted for surgery late in the season and nearly scored on his first NHL shift.
Traded
Ryan Lindgren: Lindgren had an unceremonious end to a praiseworthy Rangers career. He went to Colorado to the deadline and finished his New York tenure with 387 games played, 12 goals and 87 assists, plus a whole lot of putting his body on the line.
Jacob Trouba: Drury shopped the Rangers captain after the 2023-24 season and finally dealt him in December. Trouba mentioned it was hard for him to lead in the same way after how public his situation got over the summer.
Victor Mancini: Mancini was one of the best stories in the fall as he burst onto the scene to make the Rangers out of training camp. He went to the Canucks in the J.T. Miller trade.
Goalies
Igor Shesterkin: B
61 games, 27-29-5, .905 save percentage
When we submitted team MVP ballots, I put Shesterkin No. 1. The goalie's on-the-surface numbers were solid but not great, but that was mostly because of the Rangers' porous defense. He was sixth in the NHL with 28.59 goals saved above expected, according to Evoloving-Hockey. Clear Sight Analytics also viewed him favorably, though CEO (and former Rangers goalie) Steve Valiquette noted his metrics were substandard with the score tied this season.
'Overall he's been a Top 5 performer,' Valiquette tweeted in April. 'He just needs a Nintendo blow at score tied.'
The pressure will go up on Shesterkin in 2025-26, when his salary cap hit goes from $5.66 million to $11.5 million. His pay will now match his importance to the team.
Jonathan Quick: C
24 games, 11-7-2, .893 save percentage
Quick's save percentage dropped from its .911 mark in 2023-24, but as with Shesterkin, the Rangers' defensive woes played into that. Unlike Shesterkin — whose GSAx went up, according to Evolving-Hockey — Quick's underlying numbers also took a hit. He saved 12.82 goals above expected in 2023-24. This season he saved 3.89 fewer than expected.
Quick is 39 and his cap hit was only $1.275 million. His on-ice numbers were fine for a backup goalie, and he made the contract more than worthwhile with his off-ice leadership.
Incomplete
Louis Domingue: Now an unrestricted free agent, Domingue played only one NHL game with the Rangers in 2024-25, the same number as the year before. Assuming this is the end of his Rangers tenure, he finished it with a 2-0-0 record and .943 save percentage.
(Top photo of Adam Fox and Igor Shesterkin: Bruce Bennett / Getty Images)