Colin Stephenson: Rangers, Pavel Dorofeyev not worried about his slow start
Rangers right wing Pavel Dorofeyev sets before a face-off against the Vancouver Canucks in the first period of an NHL game at Madison Square Garden on Sunday. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
Mike Sullivan tweaked his top two lines Sunday, in an effort to try and get more five-on-five goals from his top six forward group. And it worked, as the top six produced three five-on-five goals in that night’s victory over Vancouver.
None of those goals came from Pavel Dorofeyev, though. Dorofeyev, the Russian sniper acquired from the Vegas Golden Knights in a blockbuster trade on Draft Day in June, is off to a slow start, with just one goal in the Rangers’ first seven games. And, in fact, Sullivan dropped Dorofeyev from the top power play unit in the third period Sunday, saying he thought the 25-year-old was “fighting it a little bit’’ that night. He replaced him with Gabe Perreault, who promptly set up a power-play goal for Alexis Lafreniere.
On Tuesday, however, when the Rangers hosted the Tampa Bay Lightning at the Garden for the second time this season, Dorofeyev was back in his usual spot on the power play’s first unit, patrolling the right half-boards.
“We obviously know and believe that Pav is a pretty good offensive player, with pretty good instincts,” Sullivan said at Tuesday’s morning skate in Westchester. “He's a big part of this team. He will continue to be a big part of this team moving forward. We're trying to find a way to help him capture his best game.”
Dorofeyev insisted Tuesday he’s not stressed out about having just one goal so far.
“No, not really,’’ he said. “I'm not focused on that stuff at all. Just trying to be myself and trying to help the team win the games. Sometimes, you just have to find another way, and it's not always the goals, you know?”
Dorofeyev was asked if he perhaps may have been trying too hard in Sunday’s game.
“I'm always trying hard,’’ he said with a smile. “I don't know if it's too hard. I'm just trying my best all the time.”
Eight games into an 84-game season is too early to be worried about Dorofeyev’s goal total. He had 37 goals in 82 games with Vegas last year (plus 12 more in 22 playoff games) and 35 in 82 games in 2024-25. His 93 goals in 238 games in his career projects to 32.8 goals over 84 games. Entering Tuesday, he led the Rangers in shots on goal, with 21, so, odds are, he’ll start scoring eventually.
But that doesn’t mean Sullivan has to sit idly and wait for it to happen without trying to speed things up. Sunday he moved Dorofeyev from J.T. Miller’s line, where he had been since Day 1 of training camp, to Mika Zibanejad’s line, just to give things a fresh look.
Sullivan initially kept Zibanejad with wingers Gabe Perreault and Alexis Lafreniere at the start of camp because that trio played so well together at the end of last season. So Dorofeyev started out with Miller and fellow newcomer Oliver Bjorkstrand. And that line was the Rangers’ best in the first couple games of the season.
But in the third game, in Detroit, Sullivan made an in-game tweak when he put speedy forechecker Tye Kartye on the line in place of Bjorkstrand. And on Sunday, despite the Kartye-Miller-Dorofeyev line having good possession and chance-creation analytics, he tinkered again, swapping Lafreniere and Dorofeyev, in an effort to create actual goals, as opposed to just shot attempts and scoring chances. And it worked, as Kartye scored two goals, the first coming 27 seconds into the game, off the rebound of a shot by Miller that had been set up by a pass from Lafreniere.
So if that trio, who all can play a grinding, down-low style, appears to have found instant chemistry, the hope is that Dorofeyev will benefit from playing with playmakers in Perreault and Zibanejad, whose six assists entering Tuesday were tied with Adam Fox for the team lead.
“Theoretically, Mika and Gabe are very capable people as far as their ability to get him the puck,’’ Sullivan said. “Pav is – maybe his greatest attribute is his finishing ability. And so I'd like to think that Mika and Gabe would be complementary there.”
It’s all part of the early season experimenting for a roster that has eight new faces in it from last season – a 40% changeover. Nothing to read too much into, or be concerned about.
“It’s just a matter of time, just to build a little chemistry and just trying to get predictable, one for another,” Dorofeyev said.
Colin Stephenson covers the Rangers for Newsday. He has spent more than two decades covering the NHL and just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.
