Thompson Is Out, and the Forward Depth Picture Gets Messier

Aidan Thompson has been listed as out, adding a new injury name to a forward group that was already navigating Matt Rempe's ongoing IR situation. The Rangers don't have a lot of margin for this kind of thing right now. They rebuilt the depth up front this summer through a series of short-term, affordable additions — Tolvanen at $1.5 million, Bjorkstrand on a one-year deal, Dorofeyev in from Vegas — but that approach trades security for flexibility, and flexibility doesn't help much when bodies start going missing before camp is fully underway.

Rempe's situation I've written about twice now and it hasn't changed: no timeline, no full participation, questions that go back to April when his ice time fell sharply in the final stretch of the season. Thompson is a different kind of concern — newer, less defined — but the effect is the same. The Rangers are trying to sort out a forward group that has real questions at the depth level, and they're doing it with fewer players available than they'd like.

Taylor Raddysh is one name to watch here. He earned more ice time down the stretch last season, and the new front office has signaled it wants to build around internal development. If Thompson's absence extends into the early camp period, that creates space for players like Raddysh to make a case. That's not a bad thing, necessarily. It's just not the clean camp evaluation the Rangers were probably hoping for.