Can the New York Rangers be saved? Maybe not this current version

OAs of November 25, the New York Rangers had a record of 12-6-1. With 25 points, the Rangers were in fourth place in the Metropolitan Division, with a playoff wild card berth. The team had just completed a swing through the Pacific Division, where they won against San Jose and Seattle before losing two in a row to Calgary and Edmonton. When the Rangers returned to New York City from their western road trip, there were rumblings of trouble, as at some point during that week, Rangers general manager Chris Drury had sent a memo to all NHL teams saying he was open to a trade to shake up his roster. And he made it clear that the changes could be big. The two names he brought to the other teams were Jacob Trouba, the team’s captain, and Chris Kreider, a Ranger since 2011.

We’ll never know if the Rangers were always on the cusp of a terrible month at that point, or if it was the memo that sent the team into a tailspin. The atmosphere has certainly disappeared since then. But it’s also worth noting that even when the team’s overall record was a winning one, most agreed that the Rangers didn’t look like the team that had come within just a few months earlier. two wins from the Stanley Cup Final had come. . Their winning record obscured the fact that many of those wins came against weak teams. And in one loss — a 6-1 drubbing of the lowly Buffalo Sabers in early November — the team’s all-star goaltender, Igor Shesterkin, gave up five goals on just 12 shots. There were hints behind the scenes that something was wrong, including an awkward offseason episode the team gave Barclay only gave Goodrow 15 minutes of warning before making him available for a trade.

Be that as it may, Drury meant what he said in the memo. In early December, the Rangers transferred Trouba to Anaheim, awkwardly pushing him out by essentially threatening to place him on waivers if he didn’t accept a trade. (Trouba was in the final year of his seven-year, $56 million contract, which included a no-move clause for 15 teams of his choosing; granting him a waiver would have meant that all teams had the right to to claim him.) bye, the Rangers signed Shesterkin signs a new eight-year contract worth $92 million, making him the highest-paid goaltender in the league. But a week later, Shesterkin allowed three goals in just under three minutes against the Los Angeles Kings and was removed from the game.

Four days after that, the Rangers traded Kaapo Kakko to Seattle. A players-only meeting followed that deal, with players reportedly venting about Drury – although forward Vincent Trocheck made a point of calling the media to assure everyone that wasn’t the case. A day later, Drury himself held a team meeting, amid what the New York Post, apparently not joking, described because he has “a light-hearted air… which has been missing lately.” The Rangers won that night, but lost their next game against Carolina, putting them at .500 on the season. Rangers’ head coach Peter Laviolette that is on Kreider’s couch before the next game a 5-0 loss to the New Jersey Devils. The Christmas holidays didn’t solve anything. In their first game back, the Rangers lost 6-2 to Tampa Bay. Shesterkin again let in five goals before scoring drawn again, reinforcing a seasonal trend. But he’s not the only one. Forward Mika Zibanejad, who recorded 26 goals and 46 points last season, is now a symbol of the Rangers’ equality. anemia violation. Zibanejad scored just six goals in 35 games and finished December at a brutal minus-21 on the season.

All told, between Drury’s November trade memo to NHL general managers and the end of 2024, the Rangers went 4-13-0 and finished the year in last place in the Metropolitan with just 33 points – just eight more than they had beforehand had achieved. memo – and now a full five spots behind a wildcard playoff berth. What now?

Like any team with a long history, the Rangers are no strangers to bad seasons, even total implosions. In 2004, Glen Sather was at the helm of a similar (though not identical) meltdown at the hands of a Rangers team packed with talent, including Mark Messier, Eric Lindros, Brian Leetch, Jaromir Jagr and Aleksei Kovalev. That New York team had been floundering for a while, and longtime manager Sather had also stepped in to coach a year earlier. When 2004 arrived, the Rangers were 15-13-5, coming off an “undisciplined, error-filled” 5-4 loss to St. Louis, as the New York Times wrote. reported. Sather, unlike Drury and Laviolette, was unwilling to test anyone for his mistakes. He told the Times he preferred a different approach – “talking players and coaxing them through their slump,” as the paper put it – including with Lindros, who bounced back from a scoring slump. “Passing someone on the bench for a few shifts is fine,” Sather told the newspaper in January. “Taking a man out of the line-up is another big deal. … When you bench someone, there’s nothing to come back from that,” Sather said. “I’d rather trade a man than bench him.”

Which he eventually did – in spades. In January of that year, Rangers won just four games, drew two more, but lost the remaining eleven. Ultimately, the difference between Sather’s approach and Drury’s current approach is that Drury seems more willing to move quickly. In March, Sather cleaned house and fired a dozen players, including Leetch (who had been with Rangers for seventeen years) and Kovalev, along with others such as Martin Rucinsky, Vladimir Malakhov, Jussi Markkanen and Petr Nedved. “We are clearly rebuilding,” Sather told reporters, admitting the obvious. “To see it unfold as it has developed and see it [Leetch] Finally traded, I think the bottom has been reached,” Messier acknowledged.

It happens. Sometimes teams fall apart. It’s possible the 2024-2025 Rangers haven’t quite hit rock bottom yet, but it feels like they’re close. Barring an unprecedented run to start the new year, New York could face another painful rebuild. It appears that Drury, however poorly, is accelerating that effort. And for what it’s worth, the old Rangers did it. Amid the fallout from Sather’s cleanout in March, the Rangers had “high hopes for Swedish goaltender Henrik Lundqvist,” according to the Times. Rangers fans will have to hope that history repeats itself for both good and bad.