Rangers Sign Drew Fortescue To Entry-Level Contract
8:00 p.m.: PuckPedia shared Fortescue’s contract details, sharing that it would be a $923K cap hit and $950K AAV:
- 2025-26: $775K salary, $95K signing bonus, $80K performance bonus, $82.5K minors salary
- 2026-27: $855K salary, $95K signing bonus, $82.5K minors salary
- 2027-28: $855K salary, $95K signing bonus, $82.5K minors salary
6:00 p.m.: According to a team announcement, the New York Rangers have signed defensive prospect Drew Fortescue to a three-year, entry-level contract. Instead of joining the AHL’s Hartford Wolf Pack on an amateur tryout agreement to conclude the season, Fortescue will immediately report to the Rangers and burn the first year of his new contract.
Fortescue, 20, was drafted by the Rangers with the 90th overall pick of the 2023 NHL Draft. The Pearl River, NY native spent his draft season and the year before with the United States National Team Development Program, where he scored three goals and 42 points in 113 games with a +34 rating split between their U17 and U18 clubs.
The year after being drafted by New York, Fortescue joined the Boston College Eagles to continue his development. He joined a loaded squad for his freshman campaign. During the 2023-24 season, the Eagles were led by Will Smith, Cutter Gauthier, Ryan Leonard, and teammate Gabriel Perreault.
Fortescue had a decent freshman season, scoring four goals and eight points with a +13 rating in 40 contests. Boston College made it all the way to the National Championship game before being shut out by the University of Denver. The Eagles haven’t made it to a Frozen Four since.
Still, Fortescue continues to improve his game, scoring four goals and 25 points in 72 games combining his sophomore and junior seasons, managing a +31 rating. He was solid for Team USA at the IIHF World Junior Championships, accumulating one goal and four points in 14 games with a +12 rating with the U20 club.
As shown by his collegiate output, the Rangers shouldn’t expect Fortescue to come in and take the league by storm like Matthew Schaefer or Lane Hutson. Still, he is an extremely reliable defenseman on the breakout and brings a mature game in transition.
Putting it simply, Fortescue will unlikely be a player that you notice too much, but he won’t be a player you worry about much either. Given that New York has little to play for beyond pride to finish the 2025-26 campaign, Fortescue should receive a decent opportunity to test his mettle at the NHL level.
Rangers Notes: Lafreniere, Fortescue, Edstrom
Rangers right-winger Alexis Lafrenière has had a shaky season, but the 24-year-old former #1 overall pick has finally emerged as a true top-line threat ever since Artemi Panarin‘s departure via trade to the Kings last month opened up some more ice time. Head coach Mike Sullivan had loads of praise for Lafrenière this week, telling Vince Z. Mercogliano and Peter Baugh of The Athletic that “where Laf has improved most recently is in the down-low game in the offensive zone — the grind game.”
With a tally last night against the Blue Jackets, Lafrenière hit 20 goals on the season for just the second time in his six-year career. As Sullivan points out, his willingness to drive toward the middle of the ice is a gigantic part of that. Fourteen of those tallies have come from high-danger areas either in or directly in front of the crease. That’s the same number of goals Nathan MacKinnon has generated from those areas this year, for example. If his finishing from distance and struggle to create perimeter plays are going to remain an issue long-term, he and Sullivan have appeared to have found the necessary adjustment to finally make him into an everyday top-six threat.
The dividends have been immediate. Lafrenière has six goals and 15 points in 12 games since the Olympic break while skating alongside rookie Gabriel Perreault and Mika Zibanejad. While the trio’s underlying numbers have been lacking (48.9% expected goals share, 2.46 xGA/60, per MoneyPuck), they’ve figured out how to be an effective driver of offense for a Rangers team whose season was tanked from the start by a lack of high-danger chance generation.
Mercogliano and Baugh also discussed the future of some of the Rangers’ college-bound prospects. There’s a real chance that 2023 third-round pick Drew Fortescue will turn pro and even make his NHL debut this season while burning the first year of his entry-level contract, they report. The 20-year-old shutdown lefty is wrapping up a junior season at Boston College that’s seen him record a career-best 4-9–13 scoring line in 35 games with a +4 rating.
Fortescue, a 6’2″, 194-lb New York native, has been a fixture of the United States national junior team for the past few years. He suited up at both the 2024 and 2025 World Juniors before aging out, posting four points and a +12 rating across 14 games there with a pair of gold medals. The Rangers view him as someone “who could soon work his way into the mix on New York’s second or third pair,” Mercogliano and Baugh wrote. That checks out considering the Blueshirts don’t have very much left-side depth behind their #1 option, Vladislav Gavrikov.
Shifting back to the NHL roster, Adam Edstrom has lined up at center on the fourth line between Jonny Brodzinski and Jaroslav Chmelar for the past few games. A natural pivot, he’s played exclusively at the wing in the Rangers organization to date, but was thrilled to get an audition down the middle again after incumbent #4C Sam Carrick was sent to the Sabres at the trade deadline.
“I said that I’d be excited to play center again,” Edstrom said to Mercogliano and Baugh. “It’s been a little bit, but I feel like you’re a bit more included in the game, and kind of play low. My defensive game is something that I take a lot of pride in, so I think it’ll fit me well.”
Rangers’ Drew Fortescue Remaining With Boston College For 2025-26
According to Mollie Walker of the New York Post, the New York Rangers must wait another year for one of their top defensive prospects to play games for the organization. Despite encouraging him to turn pro over the past few weeks, Drew Fortescue will return to Boston College for a junior season.
The Rangers selected Fortescue with the 90th overall pick of the 2023 NHL Draft. He had just completed a season with the U.S. National U18 Team, scoring one goal and 26 points in 62 games, and had already committed to the Eagles’ program before the draft.
Fortescue wasn’t much of a point producer in his first year with Boston College, recording only four goals and eight points in 40 games. However, his defensive awareness was impressive, and he emerged as the most efficient breakout passer on the team. He played a crucial role in the Eagles’ victory at the Hockey East tournament at the end of the season, also helping lead the team to the National Championship game against the University of Denver Pioneers.
He improved nearly every metric of his game in 2024-25 and finished with 11 assists in 36 games with a +28 rating. Still, despite finishing with the best record in the Hockey East Conference, the program itself took a step back from his freshman campaign. They lost in the quarterfinals of the Hockey East Conference tournament to Northeastern University and were ousted by the Pioneers again in the National Tournament, also in the quarterfinals.
The Rangers arguably have a solid case for Fortescue turning pro, but he wouldn’t have had access to meaningful hockey upon signing. Despite qualifying for the Calder Cup playoffs the past two seasons, the Hartford Wolf Pack don’t appear poised to return this year. New York theoretically could have had Forescue join the NHL squad for the rest of the regular season, but he doesn’t offer an upgrade to any of their other options at the time.