It’s been a rough start for Pavel Dorofeyev. The scoring forward was acquired by the New York Rangers this past summer from the Vegas Golden Knights to be a difference maker. Instead, he’s been anything but so far.

Dorofeyev entered last night with only two goals and four assists over his first 12 games. Despite continuing to lead the Rangers in shots and total attempts, they hadn’t been going in. In fact, he had five of the team’s 12 goalposts and crossbars combined.

Despite head coach Mike Sullivan doing everything possible to get him going, he’d seen enough of Dorofeyev in the top six. With nothing happening for the second line anchored by Rangers captain J.T. Miller, Sullivan demoted Dorofeyev to the third line by the middle of Saturday’s 7-4 loss to the Ottawa Senators.

In elevating Oliver Bjorkstrand up to the second unit and dropping Dorofeyev to the third unit anchored by Noah Laba, Sullivan’s moves netted some positive results. After being dominated by the Senators in the first half to fall behind 4-1, the Rangers turned it around thanks to the line changes.

Bjorkstrand provided a spark for the second line. He helped set up a Miller goal that cut the deficit to two 1:33 after Dylan Cozens had put Ottawa ahead by three. Miller was able to steer in an Adam Fox rebound for his third of the season.

Although the new trio of Miller, Bjorkstrand and Tye Kartye didn’t factor in on another goal, they dominated most of their shifts together to finish with an 84.62 Corsi rating (11-2) at 5-on-5.

After being unable to get anything going on the second line, Dorofeyev was more successful with Laba and Will Cuylle. The move seemed to give him a jolt. He played with better energy while Laba and Cuylle provided the gruntwork on the forecheck.

Following a Jake Sanderson goal that put them behind by two, Dorofeyev finally found a goal that cut it to 5-4 with 4:28 left in regulation. On a play Laba started with some hustle by keeping the puck in the Senators zone, Cuylle fed Dorofeyev across for a snapshot that beat Jonas Johansson to give him just his third goal in 13 games.

Perhaps that can provide a lift for the streaky scorer. Assuming he stays put on the third line to start tomorrow night’s game when the Rangers play host to the Los Angeles Kings at Madison Square Garden, we’ll see if Laba and Cuylle can unlock Dorofeyev.

With only seven points so far, he’s a team worst minus-11. Dorofeyev will blow out the candles on his 25th birthday Monday. He’ll want to improve his overall play while finishing more. His 41 shots rank first on the Rangers, but the 7.1 shooting percentage is less than half what he shot with Vegas in 2025-26. He scored a career-high 37 on 230 shots for a much better 16.1 percentage.

In order for the Blueshirts to be successful, they need Dorofeyev to produce. If he can snap out of it, it would provide a significant boost to a team that’s been heavily reliant on Fox (team-leading 16 assists) and Alexis Lafreniere (leads team with 9 goals) offensively. They can’t do it alone.

Following Dorofeyev’s goal that made things interesting, Lafreniere nearly tied it. Set up perfectly, the emerging scoring forward had his shot from the left circle hit the outside of the goalpost late.

Instead, the Rangers allowed two empty netters, including one to Drake Batherson, who completed the hat trick for the Senators.