Pavel Dorofeyev was brought in by the New York Rangers to be their top scorer for the foreseeable future. Giving up two first-round picks and signing him to a $77 million contract over seven years showed just that. The thing is, while he has shown off his incredible shot early on this season, it has not resulted in a lot of goals. Thus far, Dorofeyev has just two goals to his credit through 11 games this season.
On Monday night, the Rangers picked up a huge 5-2 victory over the Anaheim Ducks to improve to 6-0-0 at home this season. For Dorofeyev, he has yet to score a goal on home ice since their opener against the Tampa Bay Lightning on Oct. 1.
That’s not to say Dorofeyev didn’t put up an effort on Monday night.
Pavel Dorofeyev aggressive effort vs. Ducks has yet to result in a goal
It was a great outing overall for the Rangers offense, as they were able to skate through Anaheim’s defense with relative ease and left Ville Husso on an island. Oliver Bjorkstrand scored two goals to bring his total to four on the year.
Dorofeyev tried his best to break out of his slump, recording 10 shots, five of which were on goal. What will sting for Dorofeyev is that he had a wide open net for an easy goal on the power play in the first period, but hit the post instead. That probably summed up the start to his tenure best.
That’s not to say that that was his only good chance. When he was on the ice, The Athletic’s Vince Mercogliano points out that Dorofeyev had six high danger scoring chances. Yet, the dominoes didn’t fall in his favor.
Pavel Dorofeyev enters Mike Sullivan’s doghouse during win over Ducks
As if things weren’t working in Dorofeyev’s favor before, he ended up getting benched briefly by head coach Mike Sullivan. Albeit, briefly.
Fans and media noticed during the second period that Dorofeyev was removed from the Rangers’ top power play unit. However, he did return to taking on those responsibilities later on in the game. It was an odd sequence for the new Rangers winger, but Sullivan was keeping him accountable. Sullivan revealed after the game that he benched Dorofeyev because he was on the ice for 3:02 during the first power play, and did not get off for a change.
“I’ve been asking the power play for a number of games now that the first unit, they have to change smarter,” said Sullivan, h/t The Athletic’s Vince Mercogliano. “When the puck gets dumped down two or three times and they’ve got to go 200 feet to get it and work back into the offensive zone, they should change. And Pav didn’t. At some point, there needs to be some accountability around it. Unfortunately for Pav, he was the guy.”
Even with some big name players on the roster, like Dorofeyev, Sullivan wants his players to operate in a certain way. For him, he wanted to stress that players on the top power play unit are smarter with their line changes. Dorofeyev didn’t do that, so he was benched for a bit during the game before returning back to the top power play unit later on.
Look, Dorofeyev hasn’t put up the goals that Rangers fans expected 11 games into the season. But that’s not to say he is loafing and not even attempting to put the puck in the back of the net. The stats show that he is creating some dangerous scoring chances for the Rangers. It’s just that he doesn’t have puck luck on his side.
Perhaps that will all change soon enough, possibly on Thursday against the Toronto Maple Leafs.
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