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The first tweak to the Rangers power-play unit this season — at least for one night — involved their splash from the summer.
On the same night head coach Mike Sullivan bumped Pavel Dorofeyev to the first line in search of more 5-on-5 production from his top six, he also dropped Dorofeyev — acquired from the Golden Knights in June and then inked to a $77 million contract — to the second power-play unit for the third period of their 6-2 win over the Canucks on Sunday.
He has collected just one goal and a pair of assists through the opening seven games after recording 72 goals the past two seasons.
Gabe Perreault took Dorofeyev’s spot with the top unit and assisted on Alexis Lafrenière’s goal during the Blueshirts’ lone chance with the man advantage during the final frame.
“I thought Pav was fighting it a little,” Sullivan said postgame Sunday, “and sometimes, players have those nights. We thought we’d 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.
“But it was just situationally based on how we thought guys were going throughout the course of the night.”
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 Lafrenière.
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.
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.
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.
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Dorofeyev, who tallied 20 power-play goals last year, was signed to enhance that unit, to give the Rangers another one-timer alongside Zibanejad.
But so far, he has just six shots on goal across nearly 22 minutes of power-play ice time.
Lafrenière was named the NHL’s third star of the week after collecting five goals and two assists across the Rangers’ three games.
He leads the Blueshirts in both categories, and his latest goal unfolded on the power play Sunday night — when he sent a pass from Perreault near the net past Canucks goaltender Kevin Lankinen.
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.
Lafrenière became the second Blueshirts player to pick up a weekly award in the opening two weeks of the season, joining goaltender Igor Shesterkin — who sustained a season-ending right knee injury last week.
The Rangers have only trailed after three periods through their opening seven games. … 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’s career.