The New York Rangers will place defenseman Adam Fox on long-term injured reserve (LTIR), and place netminder Igor Shesterkin on injured reserve, according to Mollie Walker of The New York Post.
While those injured reserve placements have yet to be officially announced, the Rangers did foreshadow the moves by recalling veteran netminder Spencer Martin and defenseman Scott Morrow from their AHL affiliate, the Hartford Wolf Pack. The Rangers also reassigned forward Brett Berard back to the AHL.
The Rangers lost in overtime to the Utah Mammoth yesterday, and Shesterkin left that game with a non-contact lower-body injury.
ESPN’s Emily Kaplan reported today that Shesterkin “avoided” the “worst-case scenario” with his injury, but is still being evaluated.
Any potential extended absence of Shesterkin would deal a massive, potentially fatal blow to the Rangers’ hopes of returning to the playoffs in 2025-26.
The 2021-22 Vezina Trophy winner has started 34 games for New York this season, posting a .913 save percentage and 2.45 goals-against-average.
He’s widely considered to be among the league’s finest netminders, a status reflected by the eight-year, $11.5MM AAV contract extension he signed in December of 2024.
While the Rangers have a veteran backup in Jonathan Quick who has been stellar this season (.919 save percentage in 11 games), he hasn’t had to handle a significant workload since he was a member of the Los Angeles Kings. The three-time Stanley Cup champion made just 20 starts last season and 26 the year before. For as long as Shesterkin is out with this injury, Quick will now be counted on as the Rangers’ No. 1 goalie.
Supporting Quick in the crease is Martin, a 30-year-old veteran with 66 games of NHL experience. Martin was the No. 3 goalie for the Carolina Hurricanes last season but couldn’t find an NHL role for 2025-26 last summer, so he signed with CSKA Moscow of the KHL. Martin left CSKA and signed with the Rangers in November. He went 5-6-2 with a .905 save percentage in the KHL, and has a .903 save percentage in six games played for the Wolf Pack this season.
The Rangers could have also opted to recall 23-year-old Dylan Garand to the NHL to fill Shesterkin’s vacated roster spot, as the former CHL Goalie of the Year has been quite good in Hartford over the last few years and could be NHL-ready at this point. But seeing as Quick is likely to start most of the games in Shesterkin’s absence, it’s understandable that the Rangers would rather recall Martin, the veteran, and let Garand continue to get a steady diet of starts and develop at the AHL level.
While we don’t know how long Shesterkin is set to be out for, we do have a slightly more clear timeline regarding Fox. The 2020-21 Norris Trophy winner missed most of December with an upper-body injury, one that landed him on LTIR. He’ll now return to LTIR, this time with a lower-body injury, after just three games played. LTIR rules stipulate that Fox must now miss at least 10 games or 24 days of action. According to Walker’s report, Fox will be re-evaluated when he is eligible to be activated.
Replacing Fox on the Rangers’ roster is Morrow, who the team acquired this past summer as part of the K’Andre Miller trade. Morrow was ranked as the NHL’s No. 33 skater prospect by the team at Elite Prospects this past August, a billing he earned after scoring 39 points in 52 AHL games in his first full season playing pro hockey. The 23-year-old hasn’t been able to translate that level of production from the Hurricanes organization to New York, scoring just five points in 14 games in Hartford and three points in 16 games for the Rangers.
The Rangers at times gave Morrow a look quarterbacking their power play while Fox was injured, but he was unable to seize that role. With Fox now set to miss around a month or more, Morrow could get another look in that role.
The final player involved in transactions today is Berard. The 23-year-old has split time between Hartford and New York this season, skating in 20 games for the Wolf Pack (nine points scored) and 12 games for the Rangers (zero points). He’s a pending restricted free agent who was recalled at the start of 2026 and was dressed for the team’s Jan. 2 victory over the Florida Panthers.
He was a healthy scratch for yesterday’s loss to Utah. Newsday’s Colin Stephenson noted today that Berard’s reassignment leaves the Rangers short of spare forwards, which could suggest that one, or both, of injured forwards J.T. Miller and Noah Laba may be close to returning.
Photos courtesy of Brad Penner-Imagn Images