Rangers reportedly have a 100-point player fans can't wait to see in action

Gabe Perreault is either a future star or a middle-six winger for the New York Rangers, depending entirely on who you ask.

The debate played out this week on The Athletic Hockey Show, sparked by Scott Wheeler's new Top 100 prospects list.

Wheeler ranked Perreault 19th overall, and that number alone was enough to set off a real disagreement among the panel.

Corey Pronman opened by calling Perreault a slow, 5-foot-11 winger who had a nice year on two bad teams, though he still called him a good player.

Wheeler pushed back hard, calling Perreault a potential first-line winger who drove play at both the AHL and NHL level down the stretch.

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Chris Peters went further still, comparing Perreault's rookie impact favorably to Nikita Kucherov's own rookie season with Tampa Bay.

He caught fire on a line with Zibanejad and Lafreniere

The turning point came late in the season, once he landed on a line with Mika Zibanejad and Alexis Lafreniere.

He finished with 12 goals and 15 assists for 27 points over 49 games with the Rangers, including a hat trick against Detroit in April.

Before that, he had already torn through the AHL, scoring 10 goals and 17 points in just 20 games with Hartford.

His track record only adds to the case. Perreault set the U.S. National Team Development Program's single-season points record with 132 in 2022-23.

Pronman was not swayed, comparing Perreault instead to Matias Maccelli, a comp Peters called out directly as far too pessimistic given what he had seen on tape.

Peters landed on a different projection entirely, suggesting Perreault's hockey sense alone puts him in Kucherov territory, even if the raw point totals never quite get there.

The full debate is worth watching in its entirety.