Is Alexis Lafrenière turning the corner? Seven goals make the case

Alexis Lafrenière scored twice in the first period of the Rangers’ 4–1 win over the Tampa Bay Lightning at Madison Square Garden on Tuesday, October 13. The goals extended his scoring streak to a career-best four games and gave him seven goals in that stretch.

For a player selected first overall in 2020, the run raises a familiar question with fresh evidence: is Lafrenière moving toward a more productive level? He has seven goals and 10 points through eight games. The stronger start is clear, although his shot totals show how much of the immediate surge has come from finishing.

Two goals built in different ways

The opening goal came 62 seconds into the game. Tye Kartye retrieved the puck behind the Tampa Bay net and sent it into the slot, where Lafrenière finished. Kartye and Adam Fox received the assists. Lafrenière was close enough to the net to turn a recovered puck into an immediate scoring chance.

His second goal, at 12:47, came off a much longer pass. Kartye lifted the puck out of the defensive zone and into Lafrenière’s path. Lafrenière got behind the defenders, controlled the puck in stride and finished the breakaway against Andrei Vasilevskiy. Kartye and J.T. Miller received the assists.

Those sequences provide a useful view of the night: one finish followed pressure and recovery around the offensive goal, while the other came from getting up ice for an outlet. Lafrenière converted both opportunities. The second goal stood as the game-winner after Tampa Bay scored later in the period.

The run reaches beyond one game

Lafrenière’s four-game goal streak began with his October 6 hat trick against the Islanders. He followed that with a goal at Washington, a goal against Vancouver and the two against Tampa Bay. He recorded nine points over those four appearances.

That earlier hat trick was the first major burst in the sequence. His two goals against Tampa Bay made this his second multiple-goal game of the season. By the end of the night, the Rangers’ official postgame notes listed him tied for second in the NHL with seven goals.

His own career supplies the comparison

Lafrenière already has a 28-goal season on his record. He reached that total in 2023–24, then dropped to 17 goals the following season before recovering to 24 in 2025–26. His 57 points last season matched his previous career high, rather than establishing a new one.

The opening eight games have come with more ice time: 19:09 a game, up from 17:36 last season. That is an increase of 1:33 per game. More time creates additional opportunity, although it does not by itself establish that the quality of his chances or his overall play has improved.

His shot rate is also higher than last season, at 2.25 shots on goal per game compared with 2.00. It remains below the roughly 2.65 shots per game he produced in his 28-goal season. The current scoring pace therefore cannot be explained simply by a career-high volume of shots.

Finishing is the biggest early difference

Lafrenière has scored on seven of his 18 shots, a shooting percentage of 38.9 percent. Last season he scored on 24 of 164 shots, or 14.6 percent. Across the six NHL seasons before this one, he scored 116 goals on 846 shots, a combined rate of 13.7 percent.

That gap matters when assessing what comes next. The goals already scored are real contributions to the Rangers’ results, but eight games and 18 shots provide a narrow basis for estimating his finishing over an entire season. A larger workload and higher shot rate can support improvement even if the percentage of shots becoming goals falls.

The evidence supports a strong start and a larger opportunity for Lafrenière, rather than a settled verdict on a breakout. His next stretch will show whether he can keep creating chances as the finishing rate changes. For now, his career-long goal streak has helped the Rangers reach 6–2–0 and win all five of their home games.