New York Rangers general manager Chris Drury doesn’t need to apologize for trying to trade Jacob Trouba during the offseason. He doesn’t have to beg forgiveness for putting Barclay Goodrow on waivers, paving the way for the San Jose Sharks to claim him. And he wasn’t in the wrong for recently making it known to other GMs that the Blueshirts were willing to listen to trade offers for Trouba, Chris Kreider and others.
On the contrary, Drury should be doing all of this and more as he looks for solutions to the malaise and losing surrounding a club that was within two victories of the Stanley Cup Final in the spring, but has regressed significantly this season amidst a sense of grievance and breakdown of team leadership and structure.
The Rangers’ 13-10-1 record is a deceiving metric that’s a product of a soft early schedule and brilliant goaltending that has allowed them to compete in and win games in which they’ve been thoroughly outplayed. The Blueshirts opened 5-0-1 and were 12-4-1, but have since dropped six of seven – all in regulation – in a stretch that is much more indicative of how poorly they’ve played in 2024-25.
This team isn’t just bad defensively, unable to sustain offensive-zone pressure and almost completely without a physical element to its game. It is surrounded by negativity, with bad on-ice body language and a seeming lack of effort, emotion and general interest belying an outfit that has gone off the rails. Much of that might stretch back to Trouba’s effective blocking of a trade in July and the successful clearing of fourth-liner Goodrow’s bloated contract in late June, or maybe it’s something else that surfaced during a training camp in which warning signs of what was to come abounded.
Drury Needs to Figure Out Which Players Want to Remain on Broadway
Whatever the problem is, Drury should feel fully empowered to do whatever is necessary to remove it from his roster.
If the Rangers, who have compiled three consecutive 100-point seasons and won the Presidents Trophy in 2023-24, are indeed sulking over personnel decisions and supposed slights surrounding them, it’s unacceptable. In the NHL, as in any other major sports league, players are often unceremoniously disposed of. Salaries become unwieldy, front offices seek change, players are coveted in trades. It’s the price of competing in the best hockey league in the world, and to employ a cliched yet accurate saying – that’s what the (big) money is for.
Trouba’s decision in July to use his limited no-move clause to remain with the Rangers for another season, ostensibly to allow his wife to complete her medical residency in New York City, was entirely legal and within his rights. Surely, though, the 12-year veteran couldn’t have thought that would cause Drury to give up on shedding his $8 million salary-cap hit, especially now, with the captain playing in a manner that strongly suggests he’s checked out? With ugly underlying metrics and the complete disappearance of the physical element of his game that drives opponents crazy, what is the GM supposed to do? Give Trouba’s poor play a public show of support?
While also singling out career Ranger Kreider in his message might have seemed harsh, it’s much more likely that Drury was making it known that one of the Rangers’ few long-term contracts that would desirable in a trade was available, rather than trying to embarrass Kreider or “light a fire under him.” Maybe the GM didn’t think his missive, delivered via the Subtext messaging system, was going to get leaked, but really, whether it did or not should be immaterial when it comes to the players’ effort level.
(An aside: The Igor Shesterkin contract situation, with the franchise goaltender set to become an unrestricted free agent July 1, shouldn’t be a distraction either – especially when Shesterkin himself hardly seems distracted by it.)
Drury is looking to shake up his team, which probably required just that over the summer but arrived at camp largely intact from last season. If the players are indeed pouting over the GM’s attempts to improve a core that has proven to be very good but not nearly good enough to get over the championship hump, and is now playing like anything but a Stanley Cup contender, they need to get over it.
What Drury has to do now is find out who actually can get over it and wants to be a part of the program, and who would rather be elsewhere, and make every attempt to accommodate the latter group if possible. A Rangers team that prided itself on attention to detail and boasted resilience and confidence in droves while piling up 55 victories last season has become unrecognizable, and that’s not because of wholesale roster changes. Making this season’s freefall all the more egregious, the current roster is unquestionably deeper than last season’s was.
Veterans’ Uninspired Play Putting Team Culture at Risk
Something is very wrong here. No one has to be in the dressing room on a daily basis to accurately conclude that there are significant underlying issues dragging this team down. The problem is, those issues are largely manufactured out of whole cloth. This talented group of proven stars gets paid a lot of money to go out and play to their abilities and work toward their supposed goal of winning a Stanley Cup. Worrying about what the front office has done, is doing or might do isn’t their concern. A GM’s job is to give his club its best chance to win on a nightly basis, not worry about hurting the feelings of elite, tough athletes who have battled their way to the apex of their profession.
December can be used as something of a fact-finding mission by the front office. Coach Peter Laviolette should be given a free hand to scratch underachieving and unmotivated core players, and if that has no effect, it would behoove Drury to speak to players individually and ask them directly whether they feel like their time in a Blueshirt is over. That’s utterly necessary not just for this season, but the future.
Related: Rangers Continue Trying to Solve Same Problem While Ignoring Core Issues
That’s because the Rangers have rightly been promoting and moving young players into more prominent roles over the past few seasons. Eager kids having to watch established, highly-paid star teammates possibly mailing it in over frustration with the front office could be deeply corroding to their development and the organization’s culture. That has happened in major pro sports countless times in the past. Drury has to get it corrected immediately.
Like any personnel executive, Drury is far from perfect; there is of course the requisite portion of the fan base who hates his guts and wants him fired last week. Some of that ire is merited, as all GMs have made their share (or more) of player transactions that have aged poorly, and Drury is no different. All of that, however, is water under the bridge. His task now is to patch the holes in what would be fairly described as a sinking ship. Doing so will probably require drastic action. The fourth-year GM shouldn’t hesitate for a minute to undertake it.
