-
Greg Wyshynski, Senior NHL writer
The New York Rangers were making other franchises envious.
The Rangers made the Eastern Conference finals twice in three seasons, losing in six games to the Florida Panthers last year after winning the Presidents’ Trophy. New York has one of the best goalies in the world in Igor Shesterkin, one of the best defensemen in Adam Fox and a collection of prestigious (and well-compensated) veterans who were a few critical goals away from playing for the Stanley Cup.
Months later, few teams envy the position the Rangers are in, as one of the 2024-25 season’s unmitigated disasters, having gone 17-19-1 (.473 points percentage) in 37 games.
Following Thursday night, there was a five-point (and five-team) gap between the Rangers and the last wild-card spot in the East. That equated to just a 1.4% chance of making the playoffs this season, putting the Blueshirts in the same neighborhood of postseason probability as the Columbus Blue Jackets and Buffalo Sabres.
The Rangers are 26th in goals per game, 20th in goals against per game. What looked like a team ready to hoist the Cup for the first time since 1994 is now a franchise at a crossroads.
Is this roster good enough to win a championship? Do the Rangers need to dismantle their veteran core, filled with players over 30 who have trade protection? Or fire coach Peter Laviolette, who led them to the league’s best record last season? What are the Rangers lacking? Where will they go from here?
General manager Chris Drury has provided some clarity through his actions. He dropped forward Barclay Goodrow on waivers during the offseason, where the last three years of his contract were claimed by the San Jose Sharks. Drury tried to trade captain Jacob Trouba in June, couldn’t make a deal because of Trouba’s trade protection, and then eventually forced the defenseman to forgo the protection by threatening waivers in trading him to Anaheim in December. That was after Drury sent a memo to 31 other teams saying the Rangers were open for business, listing Trouba and star forward Chris Kreider by name.
These were the first dominos to fall. Many predict more will tumble soon. The process of turning the Rangers around is underway — but what is the right remedy?
We were interested in hearing what voices from different facets of the NHL had to say about the Rangers’ plight. So we asked a former player, a current team executive, an NHLPA certified player agent and one notable hockey historian why the Rangers have stumbled so badly, and how to fix them. After their takes, I present a path back to championship contention as well.
As you can see, the approaches vary …
How a recent NHL player would fix the Rangers
This retired NHL player competed for over a decade in the league and was asked to check in on the current Rangers team.
The hardest thing for me to understand about them is the amount of success they’ve had over the past couple of years with basically the same group. Especially last year, when you had basically the same core of guys that went to the conference final against Florida. That was a close series. A bounce here, a bounce there and the Rangers are going to the Stanley Cup Final.
They had a pretty good start to this season, and then they went on this run where they’re losing games. It’s not just that they’re losing, but the fashion in which they’re losing: just this lack of urgency, effort, compete. As a player, that would make me nervous. That would make me worried.
I know during my worst losing streaks, the one thing you don’t want to do is start pointing fingers. I’ve heard all these rumors about Chris Drury and the room. As a player, you don’t start pointing fingers at your GM at all. I don’t think in my entire [NHL] career I ever had a conversation with another player where we’re like, “This GM has to go.”
Things happen. Guys get traded. Best friends get traded. You can disagree with maybe how things are handled at times, but at the end of the day, you’re the one going on the ice. No one’s like, “I’m not going to give a great effort because I’m mad at how Chris Drury handled Trouba’s contract.”
But situations can affect your play. Having his name out there [in trade talk] might draw a reaction from Chris Kreider. What happened with Trouba in the summer. I know the team wanted to move on from him being the captain there; that’s a really tough situation going to the rink every day to lead the team. But in all my years, I’ve never seen a team that is upset with a guy leaving or a trade where it translates to the ice.
Their problems are more on the ice than off the ice. Their biggest issue is they’ve got some underperformers this season. Mika Zibanejad is part of the motor that makes that team go, and he’s having a bad year. Overall, how quickly the Rangers have fallen off, and the lack of response that you’re seeing on the ice has me baffled.
There’s still plenty of time this season to turn this around. But when you’re on a losing streak, I’ll be honest: It’s miserable going to the rink. It’s hard to have fun in practice. It’s hard to put a smile on your face. I think part of how you get out of this is trying to lift your emotions back up and try to enjoy the game again.
I doubt anyone’s talking about potential trades or rumors out there in the room. Like, maybe in a smaller group of guys over beers, but in the room none of that’s talked about. But at the trade deadline, I think [management] has to take an honest look at the team.
This core is aging. They just signed Shesterkin to that big-money, long-term deal, so I don’t think they’re at a point where you need to rebuild. It’s probably a “retool” of the core. I definitely think that if it keeps trending this way by the trade deadline, they’re going to have some tough decisions on who they keep and what direction they go.
If they make the playoffs and have a healthy run at it, I don’t think anything really changes other than your normal offseason moves that you would try to make the team better and things like that. But if it’s a quick first-round exit or they miss the playoffs entirely, I think it’s going to be a full reshape of this roster. I don’t think there’s a lot of patience in that organization. I remember when they sent out that rebuild letter and then the next thing you know they’re signing Artemi Panarin.
How an NHL team executive diagnoses the Rangers
A current hockey operations executive for an NHL team was asked to examine the Rangers.
Concerning the current season, I’m not sure they were ever really that good to begin with. They always struck me as being the kind of team that’s reliant on elite special teams. I don’t worry about them [against our team] at 5-on-5.
When you look at the roster, they have a lot of players who fundamentally aren’t that great at even strength. When you don’t dominate at 5-on-5, that makes your team susceptible to having tough stretches during the season.
I think Laviolette is a good coach. It’s not like they hired him and all of a sudden, they can’t play at 5-on-5, because he’s coached some pretty good 5-on-5 teams before.
Look, there are different ways you can win the Stanley Cup. But if you look at the teams that have won the Cup, they tend to be really good 5-on-5 teams. The Rangers don’t dominate there.
What made them elite last season was the power play (third in the NHL) and the penalty kill (also third). This season, the PK is still good, but the power play isn’t dominant. So you had a team that’s reliant on special teams and they haven’t been as good this season.
They have a lot of good players. I like Igor. A big part of the reason that they’ve had so much success is because he’s been great. But it’s an older team, which is why they’re where they are. The challenge is just how quickly they can turn part of the roster over.
I’m sure they can always take a big swing [in the offseason]. People want to be in New York.
How an NHL player agent would fix the Rangers
A longtime NHLPA certified player agent shares their thoughts on the Rangers.
I think Chris Drury is a good manager. I know he can be intense, but he has done an admirable job.
He has a superstar goalie who I believe he signed for a lower number than what I thought he might have to pay him originally. He’s got a superstar defenseman [Adam Fox] who is easily on anyone’s top 10 list for current players. Is he top five? I’m not sure, but he’s top 10. The Rangers have some good young wingers and some stuff in their system that looks solid. They seem like they’re drafting well and have some guys in Hartford that could eventually make a difference.
They have the stud goalie and the No. 1 defenseman in place. That’s a key. But they don’t have a No. 1 center. I think Mika Zibanejad is a 2C at best. But in totality, they’re in the top 10 in the league as an organization on paper.
I think the problem in New York is that they’re trying to make the team better, and you have some players that are sensitive to some of these moves. Kreider looks checked out. Artemi Panarin hasn’t had a good year. [Defenseman K’Andre] Miller has struggled. You just have a lot of guys that haven’t shown up to play.
Again, I like the way this team is built, for the most part. But some guys haven’t shown up this year and I think that’s created some drama and, ultimately, a lot of underperformance for that entire team.
Fixing it … I mean, there’s no science to that. It’s getting in the room and trying to build culture. And if that can’t be built, then you work slowly to trade guys that you can’t get to buy in.
How The Maven would fix the Rangers
Stan Fischler, 92, is an award-winning hockey author and historian whose history with the Rangers tracks back to 1942. He has been a vocal critic of the current team — and the decision to reward Shesterkin with an NHL-record contract extension — on social media this season.
What went wrong? For starters, there’s the physical angle. The Rangers got lucky in the playoffs, and should’ve been beaten by the Carolina Hurricanes, who were done in by poor goaltending. They went up against the Florida Panthers and were too soft against the hitting Cats. Lots of playoff games caused attrition with the team. That, plus the battle to win the Presidents’ Trophy took a toll.
There have been high-command blunders. Dumping good guy Barclay Goodrow hurt morale, which was further harmed by the long-running Jacob Trouba soap opera. While Trouba may have been fading as a player, he was the captain and leader of the team. By now, it’s “Mutiny on the Bounty” — only it’s the Rangers. Naming a loyal Ranger like Chris Kreider as trade bait was dumb; Drury should’ve kept his mouth shut.
There was internal jealousy. As good as Shesterkin was or is, his desire to be highest-paid player was a bad move. It upset the room.
Coach Peter Laviolette historically has failed in his second season with a new team, and it happened again. He totally mis-coached Matt Rempe, who could have been turned into an asset.
Finally, the core is aging, and it shows. There are fissures up and down the line, lack of a plan upstairs and coaching failures all combined.
But it can be fixed. It requires a complete change of the high command and general staff. A Stanley Cup winner like [former Rangers GM] Neil Smith should be the general manager. Joel Quenneville should be the coach.
They should start over. There are a lot of good kids coming up — look at the prospects in the world juniors and [AHL] Hartford. Make trades. Dump K’Andre Miller, possibly even Adam Fox. Vincent Trocheck should be captain. They need much more toughness. This team has been ripped for being soft and vanilla.
Follow the 1946 build that Conn Smythe did with the Toronto Maple Leafs: reliable vets as the core, and invigorate with kids that have talent. The Maple Leafs won four Stanley Cups in five years (1947, ’48, ’49 and ’51) with that formula.
How I’d fix the New York Rangers
Greg Wyshynski is the senior NHL writer for ESPN, based in Brooklyn.
When I spoke with now-deposed captain Jacob Trouba before the season, he noted that time was running short for this version of the Rangers.
“In all likelihood, this will probably be the last crack for this core. I don’t think that’s a secret by any means,” he said.
At the time, I brushed those comments off as simply a core player whose team was actively trying to trade him taking a fatalistic view of his own future. But seeing how this season has gone, Trouba’s words seem more prescient: Last season was the Rangers’ best shot. This season was their last shot.
If the Rangers rally for a playoff berth — and if Shesterkin is healthy and the power play heats up, I can’t totally discount that from happening — it’ll be through what’s already in the room and down in Hartford. If there is veteran help on the way, one imagines it will be a player shipped to New York for one of its own veterans. I don’t think the Rangers have earned reinforcements from Drury, who seems content to dismantle this core before addressing the fundamental flaws on the roster.
Put it this way: The Rangers have a less than 2% chance at making the playoffs, and an 8.5% chance of winning the NHL draft lottery.
Which result helps this team more going forward?
Moving Kreider is probably easier than moving Zibanejad, despite the latter playing a position of greater need for most teams. Kreider has a lower cap hit ($6.5 million) and base salary and is signed through 2026-27. Plus, he’s a great two-way player, an asset on the power play who brings the kind of physicality that contenders crave. He has trade protection, but both his recent healthy scratch and his being named in the Drury Memo tells you the Rangers aren’t going to be shy about applying pressure on him to move. He’s friends with Goodrow and Trouba. He knows the score.
Speculation about Zibanejad’s decline around MSG has ranged from a conflict with Laviolette to a reorienting of his personal life after he became a father. I hate speculation around the latter because it seems invasive and inhumane, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge that conjecture being out there. As for the former, I don’t think Laviolette coaches this team beyond this season if the trends continue, so the point is moot if Mika sticks around.
Zibanejad is signed through 2029-30 at $8.5 million AAV with a full no-movement clause, and is due to make $10 million in base salary next season before the figure declines for the rest of his contract. As has been said by others here: He’s an ideal second-line center on a good team. It would be interesting to see if Toronto is interested in the summer, after John Tavares comes off the books and they take care of Mitch Marner with a new deal. That could be a decent landing spot for him, with Auston Matthews ahead of him on the depth chart.
With Kreider, Zibanejad and Trouba cleared out, Drury can start to turn over the roster. Having Shesterkin signed through 2032-33 and Fox signed through 2028-29 gives this team a pretty sturdy foundation on which to build. I figured the other part of that holy trinity of goalie-defenseman-forward to build around would be Alexis Lafreniere, but I’m somewhat concerned by his follow-up season after securing the bag with a seven-year extension. Maybe he needed the carrot. If he doesn’t find his stride, it wouldn’t be difficult to find a taker for him, especially in a package for someone else’s young star forward.
Panarin is signed through 2025-26 and is still productive. I agree with The Maven: Trocheck is captain material if I’ve ever seen it.
The great thing about the Rangers is that there’s no limit to how they’ll react to embarrassment and dashed expectations. Drury is a few moves away from having the flexibility to dramatically reshape this roster. As Trouba and Goodrow will tell you, he’ll secure the flexibility by any means necessary.
With some veterans cleared out, there are some younger players I love who are ready for bigger roles: Defenseman Braden Schneider (23); forward Brennan Othmann (21); forward Will Cuylle (22), who the Rangers probably wish they could clone to fill out their bottom six; and especially winger Gabe Perreault (19), currently starring for Team USA at the world juniors. So, despite this unexpected dud of a season, there’s a lot to build atop on Broadway.
But let’s be real: These are the Rangers. Patience has never been their virtue. They will inevitably take their big swings at star talent if the opportunities arise, whether that means via free agency or packaging parts of the roster to acquire it via trade.
Does that mean putting stacks of cash on the table for Colorado Avalanche winger Mikko Rantanen, who remains without a contract beyond this season for a team paying Nathan MacKinnon $12.6 million against the cap? (Although it would be ironic to see both Zibanejad and Kreider leave, as the kind of right wing they’ve been begging to play with arrives.)
Does that mean plucking either J.T. Miller or Elias Pettersson from the battle front of the Vancouver Canucks‘ civil war?
Does that mean making a serious run at Brady Tkachuk if the Ottawa Senators fail to make the playoffs again, despite all the talk of “soft tampering” from owner Michael Andlauer?
Hey, it’s the New York Rangers. All things are possible with cap space, cash and the bright lights of Broadway beckoning.
It’s here we’ll note that Connor McDavid is a free agent in summer 2026 …