NEW YORK, NEW YORK – JUNE 09: Ondrej Palat #18 of the Tampa Bay Lightning skates against Igor Shesterkin #31 of the New York Rangers during the second period in Game Five of the Eastern Conference Final of the 2022 Stanley Cup Playoffs at Madison Square. Garden on June 09, 2022, in New York City. (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)
Going into the 2022-23 NHL season, the New York Rangers are coming out of a season where they officially started to emerge from their rebuild. With a Vezina caliber goaltender, a Norris-winning defenseman, and enough star power up front to put the fear of god in almost any opponent, this Rangers team is ready to start contending for the foreseeable future.
However, to emerge from the rebuild as strongly as the Rangers did, there were people who overachieved. This isn’t to say that they are going to stop being meaningful contributors at the NHL level, they’re just unlikely to be able to sustain the level of success they achieved last year. Whether that is due to age, injuries, or a career year, there are many candidates for this.
Many teams will have candidates for regression and the Rangers are not going to differ. So, what counts as an overachiever? Obviously, that is someone that surpasses expectations at a rate that is clearly unsustainable based on what they have done in their career to that point. Whether it be a grizzled veteran or a young player coming off a year that burst onto the scene, you can make a case for a few players.
With that said, it is time to examine the players. Players that are bit part producers on the team will not be talked about. Those kinds of players are present across the league and every team has them. Each and every one of them has ups and downs so there are going to be meaningful contributors to this Rangers team. That way, it doesn’t seem like I’m wasting your time.
I would like to preface this by saying I’d love to be wrong. However, the career numbers of these players suggest that this might be the case. Anyway, let’s start with the first player.