- According to reporter Keegan Jarvis, who covers the Hartford Wolf Pack for Blueshirt Banter, forward Juuso Parssinen suffered an injury in his first game with the Wolf Pack and is now out on a week-to-week timeline. Parssinen was reassigned to Hartford on Nov. 26 after clearing waivers that same day. The 24-year-old was signed to a two-year, $1.25MM AAV extension by the Rangers, who believed he could fill their need for a third-line center when they acquired him from the Colorado Avalanche. But Parssinen was passed on the depth chart by rookie Noah Laba, and has now found himself in the AHL. Before he can get back onto the ice and try to earn his way back into the NHL, Parssinen will now need to work his way back to full health.
Rangers Rumors
Rangers Activate William Borgen Off IR
The New York Rangers have actived defenseman William Borgen off of injured reserve, per Mollie Walker of The New York Post. Borgen has been day-to-day with an upper-body injury for the last 10 days. He was designated as a game-time decision before Saturday’s matchup against the Tampa Bay Lightning, and did indeed make his return from injury when the game kicked off.
It was more than a welcome return. New York struggled against Tampa Bay but Borgen posted two blocked shots and six hits in 18 minutes of ice time. He has been a serviceable utility piece for the Rangers. Through his first full season with the club, Borgen has posted three points, a plus-five, 24 blocks, and 26 hits in 19 games. Those numbers add on to the 13 points, plus-nine, 74 hits, and 80 blocks he posted in 51 games with the Rangers after a mid-season trade from the Seattle Kraken.
Hopefully Borgen’s return, even to a lost game, can help the Rangers continue their November surge. The team has been hot-and-cold all month long, kicking off November with a 5-2-0 record, then losing four games straight, and then bouncing back to a three-game win-streak that ended on Saturday. Their schedule doesn’t get any easier in the short-term, with matchups against the Dallas Stars, Ottawa Senators, Colorado Avalanche, and Vegas Golden Knights on deck. Borgen’s hard-earned defense should help New York fight off those strong offenses and continue climbing up the standings.
Rangers Recall Scott Morrow
The Rangers announced they’ve recalled defenseman Scott Morrow from AHL Hartford. Fellow rearguard Connor Mackey was sent back to Hartford in the corresponding move.
Mackey was recalled just yesterday to serve as a healthy extra after Juuso Pärssinen was sent down following his waiver clearance. The Rangers likely wanted to recall Morrow instead. However, starting this season, players must play at least one game on an AHL assignment before they’re eligible for another recall. Morrow hadn’t played since being sent down to the Wolf Pack on Monday, so they were unable to add him back to the roster. He suited up for Hartford last night, though, so he can come up today.
The Blueshirts have been in need of an extra defenseman since William Borgen left their game against the Golden Knights on Nov. 18 with an upper-body injury. He’s been out for four games and is now on injured reserve. He was a game-time decision yesterday against the Hurricanes, but adding Morrow back to the roster today suggests they don’t expect Borgen to be available for tomorrow’s matinee against the Bruins.
Morrow, 23, hasn’t had a great start to his tenure in the Rangers organization. A 2021 second-round pick, he was acquired from Carolina in last season’s K’Andre Miller deal and immediately slotted in as their most dynamic defense prospect. He ranked No. 2 overall in the system in NHL.com’s preseason rankings. After failing to make the opening night roster, though, he’s been limited to just three points in 12 games with Hartford and has a -6 rating, third-worst on the team.
The Connecticut native has made three appearances for the Rangers this season, in spot duty as injuries necessitated. He’s still looking for his first point as a Blueshirt and has a -2 rating while averaging 13:11 of ice time per game. He’s managed eight shot attempts and three blocks, but doesn’t have a hit. The Rangers have been out-attempted 50-36 in Morrow’s 5-on-5 minutes for a CF% of 41.9.
Rangers Recall Connor Mackey, Reassign Juuso Pärssinen
The New York Rangers have reassigned forward Juuso Pärssinen after he cleared waivers from Tuesday. With the available roster spot, the Rangers have recalled defenseman Connor Mackey, with two games left on their current road-trip. Mackey has recorded 11 shots on goal, his first point, and his first fight of the season in his last four games with the AHL’s Hartford Wolf Pack.
New York has rotated extra defenders for much of the season. Mackey has already spent 10 days on the NHL roster, across two call-ups. He’s alternated with Scott Morrow, who played in his first four games of the NHL season last week. Mackey could get his first NHL game of the season in a road game against Carolina or Boston, should New York want an alternative to Matthew Robertson, who has one goal and a minus-seven through 15 games this season.
Mackey has played in three games with the Rangers over the last two seasons. He has no scoring and two fights with New York, but did rack up eight points and 50 penalty minutes in 33 NHL games split between the Calgary Flames and Arizona Coyotes between 2021 and 2023. He joined the Hartford Wolf Pack after the 2022-23 season ended, and has since racked up 38 points and 193 penalty minutes in 125 AHL games.
Meanwhile, Pärssinen will head to the minors after a quiet stretch with the Rangers. He hasn’t made it onto the scoresheet – with a point or a penalty – in nine games. He only has three points and two penalty minutes in 14 games this season. New York acquired Pärssinen alongside Calvin de Haan and two draft picks in a deal that sent Ryan Lindgren to the Colorado Avalanche at last year’s Trade Deadline. This move will set Pärssinen up to play his first AHL games since the 2023-24 season, when he racked up 34 points in 50 games with the Colorado Eagles between the regular-and-post-season.
Rangers’ Juuso Pärssinen Clears Waivers
Nov. 26: There were no takers for Pärssinen on waivers, per Friedman. The Rangers now have 30 days or 10 appearances from Pärssinen, whichever comes first, to assign him to Hartford before needing to waive him again to do so.
Nov. 25: The Rangers have placed forward Juuso Pärssinen on waivers, according to Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet. It’s unclear if he’ll be assigned to AHL Hartford if he clears. Vince Z. Mercogliano of The Athletic implied today’s waiver placement is a substitute for a lack of suitable trade options, so it’s more about hopefully finding Pärssinen a change of scenery via a claim than a demotion to the minors.
Pärssinen has fallen out of a regular role for the Blueshirts, serving as a healthy scratch in six of the last eight games. He’d suited up in 11 straight before that, so that’s a notable reduction in usage. When dressed, the 24-year-old pivot has managed two goals and an assist in 14 appearances but has averaged just 8:56 of ice time per game.
The Rangers added Pärssinen via trade last season, picking him up from the Avalanche in the Ryan Lindgren deal in March. He played a modest role down the stretch, but after inking a two-year, $2.5MM extension in May, it looked like the 6’3″ Finn would get a crack at serving as New York’s third-line center from opening night onward. Instead, he wasn’t even in the lineup. A strong training camp from rookie Noah Laba bumped him from the slot, and instead, he’s been used as more of a 13th forward.
That’s not the role Pärssinen hoped for at this stage of his career. A seventh-round pick by the Predators in 2019, he burst onto the scene with six goals and 25 points in 45 games for Nashville in 2022-23 – a 46-point pace over 82 games. Since then, however, he’s produced at about half that rate and is now potentially on his way to his fourth team in as many seasons.
While most teams wouldn’t have many qualms about picking up someone with Pärssinen’s offensive ceiling at a $1.25MM cap hit, the fact that he’s signed through next season – and he’s paid more in salary ($1.3MM) than what he’ll count against the books in 2026-27 – likely limits his interest and was why they couldn’t find any takers on the trade market.
Poll: Who Will Be The Next Pending UFA To Sign An Extension?
As expected, the upcoming unrestricted free agent class has been thinned out over the last couple of months. From Connor McDavid to Adrian Kempe, there are very few top-level pending UFAs left on the board. Still, there’s some belief that the list could get even shorter relatively soon.
Of the highest-scoring pending UFAs in the league right now, Evgeni Malkin, Nick Schmaltz, Alex Ovechkin, John Carlson, Alex Tuch, and Artemi Panarin lead the way. However, in the cases of Malkin, Ovechkin, and Carlson, they are all 35 years or older, and there’s no guarantee they’ll continue playing beyond the 2025-26 campaign. That leaves Schmaltz, Tuch, and Panarin as the three likeliest options to sign an in-season extension.
Much has been made of Schmaltz’s situation with the Utah Mammoth this season. Despite getting off to an excellent start with 10 goals and 22 points in 23 games, there is some indication that the relationship between Schmaltz and Utah has soured.
According to a report from late October by David Pagnotta of The Fourth Period, the Mammoth apparently attempted to trade Schmaltz to the Carolina Hurricanes during the past offseason when the first round of extension negotiations proved unfruitful. Schmaltz was involved with the trade talks at the time, as he provided Utah with a list of teams with which he would sign an extension. Since then, there have been no updates as to any further negotiations between the two sides.
Meanwhile, Tuch has gotten off to a similarly good start to his contract year with the Buffalo Sabres. A native of Syracuse, NY, Tuch’s love for the Buffalo area is well known, leading many to believe that he’ll sign an extension with the team this season. However, given that the Sabres are headed for a 15th consecutive year without reaching the playoffs, few people would blame Tuch if he were to depart for a more competitive situation.
Lastly, there have been a few updates between Panarin and the New York Rangers, though it doesn’t appear anything is close between the two sides. Reports from earlier in the year indicated that the Rangers would only extend Panarin if he were amenable to a much lower salary, which is something Panarin has not appeared enthusiastic about. The 34-year-old Russian has scored six goals and 20 points in 24 games.
Despite all three potentially leading the pack of prospective UFAs next summer, and additionally being quality trade assets, there’s plenty of time remaining in the regular season to get a deal done. Which of these three, if any, do you think will be the next to sign?
Mobile users click here to vote.
Latest On J.T. Miller, Jonathan Quick
As the New York Rangers attempt to spark a push up the Eastern Conference standings tonight during their game against the St. Louis Blues, they’ll need to do so without the on-ice help of captain J.T. Miller. Newsday’s Colin Stephenson reported today that Miller remains out with an upper-body injury on a day-to-day timeline. While the injury appears highly unlikely to keep Miller out of action for very long, it is a discouraging development nonetheless in what has been a troubling start to the season for both Miller and the Rangers as a whole. The Rangers traded two promising young players in Filip Chytil and Victor Mancini, as well as a first-round pick, to the Vancouver Canucks to acquire Miller, and at the time the move seemed easily defensible as Miller had very recently scored 37 goals and 103 points. Centers capable of that level of production are very rarely made available, and since the Rangers already had a cornerstone defenseman (Adam Fox) and franchise goalie (Igor Shesterkin), paying that price to add a true number-one center was seen as a “win” for the team.
But since Miller has arrived in New York, he’s only been able to match the level of play he set in Vancouver on a sporadic basis. Miller scored a solid 35 points in 32 games last season, but the Rangers failed to reach the playoffs. So far this year, Miller has struggled to produce as consistently, and has just 12 points in 22 games. That’s a 45-point 82-game pace. For a player making $8MM against the cap with the clear expectation to be a leading scorer on a playoff team, that’s simply not enough production for the Rangers to get where they want to go as a team. While this injury will sideline Miller for a short while, it won’t rob him of his chance to turn around his season whenever he recovers and returns to the ice. For the Rangers to restore their status as true Stanley Cup contenders, a status they lived up to by reaching two Eastern Conference Finals in three seasons, they’ll need Miller healthy and firing on all cylinders.
- Stephenson also reported that veteran Rangers backup goalie Jonathan Quick has a lower-body injury and is still being evaluated. While the Rangers have a young, capable No. 3 goalie in their organization in the form of Dylan Garand, who was an AHL All-Star last season, any extended absence faced by Quick would damage the Rangers’ ability to turn around their season. Through six games played this year, Quick has turned back the clock, putting forward performances reminiscent of his prime years backstopping the Los Angeles Kings to Stanley Cup championships. Quick is 3-3-0 in his six starts with a .944 save percentage and 1.69 goals-against-average. While he’s 39 years old and a pending UFA, he’s making the case to remain the Rangers’ backup for next season with his form early in 2025-26. His current lower-body injury threatens the momentum he’s built so far this year, though, and the Rangers are likely hoping his absence is a brief one.
Sabres, Alexandar Georgiev Terminate Contract
Nov. 24: Georgiev cleared unconditional waivers, per Friedman, meaning he’s had his contract with Buffalo terminated and is free to sign with Spartak.
Nov. 23: Insider Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet shared this afternoon that Sabres goaltender Alexander Georgiev has been waived with the intent of contract termination. Georgiev is set to move on to Russia and join Spartak of the KHL.
Georgiev was waived last month, then cleared and joined the AHL’s Rochester Americans. There, the Sabres affiliate had a wealth of goaltending, arguably at a legitimate NHL level, with Devon Levi alongside Georgiev, as well as prospect Topias Leinonen. Before the season, Buffalo had significant question marks in net with Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen banged up, and the respectable but not exactly standout Alex Lyon tasked with holding things down.
As it has turned out, Lyon has performed steadily, and waiver pickup Colten Ellis has also exceeded expectations. There was no real path forward for Georgiev in the organization. The Bulgarian native played in two games for Rochester, both ending in losses with a 3.57 GAA. He now seems to be in greener pastures, joining a solid Spartak club, which has needed help in net, where he will be a star at the KHL level.
Originally undrafted out of the Finnish Liiga, an unusual path for most Russian players, Georgiev made an impression with the Rangers, who signed him in 2017. Making his NHL debut in 2018, Georgiev has the distinction of serving as backup for franchise icon Hendrik Lundqvist in his final season as a Ranger, gradually taking a higher workload. With the emergence of star Igor Shesterkin, though, Georgiev’s future in New York became uncertain.
After the 2021-22 season, Georgiev was dealt to the freshly minted Stanley Cup Champion Colorado Avalanche for draft picks in order to replace Darcy Kuemper. Georgiev emerged as a low-stakes, affordable option for a team strong enough up front to make up for any shortcomings in net. Sure enough, Georgiev posted his best season as a pro, leading the NHL with 40 wins and becoming an NHL All-Star.
Unfortunately for Georgiev, despite twice leading the league in wins, all while still remaining under 30 years old, Colorado quickly pulled the plug in 2024-25 amidst his shaky play. While unusual for a team to do so with a former All-Star, it appeared the success was largely driven due to the team in front of him. Georgiev was dealt to the hardcore rebuilding San Jose Sharks, where Colorado brought back Mackenzie Blackwood in return.
In the thick of an aggressive rebuild, getting heavily outshot most nights, Georgiev naturally did not have as much success in San Jose in a role that is especially tough on any goaltender. GM Mike Grier let his contract expire after 2024-25.
Georgiev was signed in September by Buffalo, with an opportunity to re-establish himself as an NHLer; however, with the emergence of other netminders in the organization, doors shut quickly. Still just 29, it is not impossible he could make an NHL return, but for now, Georgiev will likely be eager to return closer to home as a major standout player in the KHL.
Rangers Announce Multiple Roster Moves
The Rangers have cycled around youngsters on the NHL roster. Winger Brett Berard and goaltender Dylan Garand have both been recalled, while defenseman Scott Morrow has been assigned back to the AHL’s Hartford Wolf Pack. Morrow stepped into his first three games with the Rangers on his latest recall. He recorded no scoring and a -2 rating.
To make room for Garand’s addition, defenseman William Borgen has been placed on injured reserve, retroactive to his last game on Nov. 18, per Peter Baugh of The Athletic. He will be eligible to return as soon as he’s back to full health, but is currently carrying a day-to-day designation as he recovers from an upper-body injury. This move will leave the Rangers with six healthy defensemen and only two right-shot defenders for their upcoming schedule.
These moves will most notably help New York address the injury that backup goaltender Jonathan Quick sustained in Saturday’s loss to the Mammoth. He managed to finish the game, but Garand’s call-up could indicate that Quick’s health is still up in the air. The Rangers host the St. Louis Blues on Monday, then depart for a two-game road trip on Wednesday. Garand could offer emergency support should Quick need to step out of any portion of that road trip.
The rookie goaltender has faced some early-season struggles in Hartford’s starting role. He’s appeared in 11 of the team’s 17 games and set a 3-6-2 record and .897 save percentage. The performance is well below the 20-10-8 record and .913 SV% he put up in 39 appearances with Hartford last season.
Despite that slow step, Garand has firmly remained New York’s third-string goaltender. He will now bear the fruits of that standing with an injury call-up. Garand could even make his NHL debut on this recall, if New York wanted to keep star Igor Shesterkin from starting in three games straight.
This move will also bring Berard back to the top flight. The hard-nosed winger has had his ups and downs with the Wolf Pack, recording nine points and 24 penalty minutes in 17 games so far. He has spent the start of the season in the minor leagues, despite scoring 10 points in 35 NHL games in his rookie season last year. This could be a chance for the 23-year-old to return to the NHL lineup, though it’d likely be in a bottom-six role.
Meanwhile, Morrow will return to Hartford once again. He has bounced between the NHL and AHL lineups all season long, after being acquired by New York in the summer trade that sent K’Andre Miller to the Carolina Hurricanes. Morrow already has two points, four penalty minutes, and a minus-five in 11 games with Hartford. He’ll look to boost those numbers in his return.
Miller And Borgen Listed As Day-To-Day
The Rangers will be without a key forward tonight against Utah as Peter Baugh of The Athletic relays (Twitter link) that center J.T. Miller is listed as out day-to-day due to an upper-body injury. In his first full season back with New York following a midseason trade in 2024-25, the 32-year-old is logging 20:41 per game and taking a regular turn on both special teams units. However, as has been the case for a lot of the team so far, offense has been hard to come by as he has just six goals and six assists in 22 games despite seeing a lot of ice time on the top line.
Meanwhile, Baugh also noted that defenseman William Borgen remains listed as day-to-day with his upper-body injury which suggests he’ll miss a second straight game. He has been a regular on the second pairing for the Rangers this season, picking up three points, 24 blocks, and 26 hits in 19 outings.