He has collected just one goal and a pair of assists through the opening seven games after recording 72 goals the past two seasons. <\/p>\n
Gabe Perreault took Dorofeyev\u2019s spot with the top unit and assisted on Alexis Lafreni\u00e8re\u2019s goal during the Blueshirts\u2019 lone chance with the man advantage during the final frame.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought Pav was fighting it a little,\u201d Sullivan said postgame Sunday, \u201cand sometimes, players have those nights. We thought we\u2019d make a little tweak and see if we could get it going a little bit, and obviously, Gabe was a part of the goal, so we were happy about that.\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"New](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/pavel-dorofeyev-16-new-york-144701837.jpg\")
New York Rangers Pavel Dorofeyev (16) takes a slapshot against the Vancouver Canucks at Madison Square Garden in New York City, Sunday, Oct. 11, 2026. NHLI via Getty Images<\/p>\n
\u201cBut it was just situationally based on how we thought guys were going throughout the course of the night.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
From the first power-play drill of training camp, when the Blueshirts began working on special teams during the condensed preseason, their top unit consisted of Dorofeyev, Mika Zibanejad, Adam Fox, J.T. Miller and Lafreni\u00e8re. <\/p>\n
![\"Pavel](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/pavel-dorofeyev-16-new-york-144692870.jpg\")
Pavel Dorofeyev (16) of the New York Rangers passes the puck against the Vancouver Canucks at Madison Square Garden in New York City on Sunday, October 11, 2026. NHLI via Getty Images<\/p>\n
Perreault, who spent time on the top power-play line last year and finished with six points with the man advantage in 2025-26, opened the year on the second unit. <\/p>\n
And Sullivan, after the top unit generated just one goal through the first five games, had said Thursday that they planned to be patient and let the group work through early growing pains.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The next wrinkle with the power play, which entered play Monday still ranked No. 7 in the NHL with a 26.3 percent success rate, will involve whether that change was temporary or for longer than one night.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Dorofeyev, who tallied 20 power-play goals last year, was signed to enhance that unit, to give the Rangers another one-timer alongside Zibanejad. <\/p>\n
But so far, he has just six shots on goal across nearly 22 minutes of power-play ice time.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Lafreni\u00e8re was named the NHL\u2019s third star of the week after collecting five goals and two assists across the Rangers\u2019 three games. <\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\tRead the expert take on the Blueshirts\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSign up for Inside the Rangers, a weekly Sports+ exclusive.\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\tThank you\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
He leads the Blueshirts in both categories, and his latest goal unfolded on the power play Sunday night \u2014 when he sent a pass from Perreault near the net past Canucks goaltender Kevin Lankinen.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He also added an assist in the first period, sending a pass to Tye Kartye that led to the Rangers taking a 1-0 lead just 27 seconds into the game. <\/p>\n
Lafreni\u00e8re became the second Blueshirts player to pick up a weekly award in the opening two weeks of the season, joining goaltender Igor Shesterkin \u2014 who sustained a season-ending right knee injury last week.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Rangers have only trailed after three periods through their opening seven games. \u2026 Liam Greentree, who was the prospect returning to the Rangers in the Artemi Panarin trade last season, scored in consecutive games for AHL Hartford over the weekend to mark the first professional goals of the 20-year-old\u2019s career.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The first tweak to the Rangers power-play unit this season \u2014 at least for one night \u2014 involved…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":880607,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[4823,385,277017,99],"class_list":["post-880606","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-new-york-rangers","tag-nhl","tag-pavel-dorofeyev","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/880606","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=880606"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/880606\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/880607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=880606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=880606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=880606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}