Rangers Defense Is Now a Team Strength – The Hockey Writers – New York Rangers

What was once a weakness for the New York Rangers has now become a strength. That’s the defensive side of the ice for the team.

In total, the Rangers, even though they finished as the third-worst team in the NHL in 2025-26, just allowed 686 high-danger chances, which was sixth-best in the NHL, according to Natural Stat Trick. Compare that to the 2024-25 squad, which allowed the third-most high-danger chances in the league.

There are a couple of major reasons why the Rangers were able to completely turn around their defensive play in 2025-26.

Gavrikov Provides a Boost

Most notably, the Rangers signed Vladislav Gavrikov to a seven-year deal last July. While the term is sizeable for the 30-year-old, there’s no question he played a key role in the much-improved blue line, with the plan being to play with Adam Fox.

It was a wise decision, because when the two were paired together in over 872 minutes of ice time, they posted an impressive 58.49 percent expected goals share. However, there was one problem: Fox only appeared in 55 games last season due to multiple injuries that required him to miss extensive periods of time.

As a result, Gavrikov became a polarizing player. The Russian native was then asked to play with Braden Schneider – and it was an unmitigated disaster. The two posted an expected goals share of 40.95 percent when paired together.

Sure, Gavrikov should be held accountable, but in fairness, he was asked to play with more of a stay-at-home defenseman, who has mostly been featured on the third pair. It was never a great match, and the results prove it.

Compare Gavrikov’s numbers last season when he played with Mikey Anderson and Jordan Spence. The expected goal shares were 56.01 percent and 57.55 percent, respectively, for those two. That reinforces that Schneider was more of a liability than Gavrikov.

Mike Sullivan’s Impact

Along with strong play from the Gavrikov-Fox pairing, clearly, new head coach Mike Sullivan had some influence.

For one, he changed the defensive coverage from mostly man-to-man under Peter Laviolette to zone coverage.

That comes in addition to the new personnel. Gavrikov represented one change, while the other was the replacement of K’Andre Miller with Matthew Robertson, who was a pleasant surprise last season. At first, the plan might have been to play and develop Scott Morrow. However, the 23-year-old failed to impress enough to earn the coaching staff’s trust, as Robertson did.

One of the mistakes made last offseason was not adding another offensive defenseman capable of playing NHL minutes. Sullivan, at break-up media day, admitted that puck-moving defensemen are one of the organization’s needs going forward, according to Mollie Walker of the New York Post. This is one way to potentially address the offensive struggles surrounding the team last season.

What does coach Mike Sullivan think the #NYR biggest needs are?

“I think we’ll have some opportunities potentially to add some puck-moving ability on our blue line. I think there might be some opportunities to improve our bottom six at the forward position, where players might… pic.twitter.com/4UZlGu6chH

— Mollie Walker (@MollieeWalkerr) April 17, 2026

Overall, the Rangers seem to have a strong defensive core around Fox, Gavrikov and Robertson. While the Rangers can make tweaks, including replacing Schneider with a better puck-mover, the unit as a whole has turned into a strength, with Sullivan leading the turnaround.

Having this luxury will allow the Rangers to focus on other areas. Clearly, the team, which ranked ninth-worst in the NHL in goals for, could use another scoring winger.