The date was Oct. 13, 2021, and for a New York Rangers organization seeking change, there was a sense that a new era might be dawning before its eyes.
The Blueshirts were playing their season opener against the Washington Capitals, and for 60 minutes, fans saw a retooled roster that appeared to be leading a desired transformation. Newly-acquired power forward Sammy Blais came out banging away at every Capital in sight, delivering five heavy hits for the game. Dryden Hunt, another offseason arrival, recorded three more. Recently-arrived enforcer Ryan Reaves patrolled the ice for 11 minutes with his glowering gaze, adding five bone-crunching checks and playing a major role in it being a quiet night for Caps bully and longtime nemesis Tom Wilson. Barclay Goodrow, whose grinding, lunchpail game had proved to be one of the finishing touches for Stanley Cup-winning Tampa Bay Lightning teams the previous two seasons, added to the muscle up front.
On the back end, towering Patrik Nemeth and Jarred Tinordi joined holdover Jacob Trouba to give the Rangers’ defense a bigger, nastier persona, seemingly signaling that the days of opponents crashing the crease were over. The Blueshirts outhit the perennially physical Caps 27-12.
The Rangers lost the game 5-1, but the result was almost besides the point. In their first battle of the season with the Caps and Wilson, whose mugging of stars Artemi Panarin and Pavel Buchnevich during a shocking fracas the previous May had fully exposed the Blueshirts’ glaring lack of physicality and pushback – leading to the firing of general manager Jeff Gorton and team president John Davidson before that season concluded – the restructuring appeared to be a success.
Rangers’ First Shot at Toughening up Ended in Disappointment
The roster was less talented but more competitive in the corners and in one-on-one battles, and appeared impossible to push around anymore. Fans could look with enthusiasm to the near future, envisioning a team infinitely better equipped for the grind of the playoffs than the mostly-skill-but-little-will versions of recent history.
As we know now, the changes didn’t take. With the exception of Goodrow, whose six-year contract made him a mainstay, all of the new additions were gone less than three years later, with the trade of Blais in February 2023 marking the end of the line for that group. The makeover, as the word suggests, was largely cosmetic, and that’s because the players new general manager Chris Drury brought in during his flurry of moves in summer 2021 were generally fringe NHLers, likely destined from the beginning to be short-term fixes that alleviated pressure from ownership and the fans to harden the roster.
To be sure, it wasn’t a total failure. The Rangers are a tougher team now, both physically and mentally, having outmuscled Washington in a first-round sweep in the 2024 playoffs and going skate-to-skate with the in-your-face Carolina Hurricanes in a six-game second-round victory.
What hasn’t changed, though, is the Blueshirts’ need for more brawn and grit. For the second time in three years, a bigger, more physical team ended their season in six games in the Eastern Conference Final, with the Florida Panthers doing the honors in 2024 after the Lightning’s huge defense corps shut down the Rangers offense to lead a comeback from an 0-2 hole in 2022.
Goodrow has departed now too, a casualty of his overpriced contract that caused the Rangers to place him on waivers, from which the San Jose Sharks claimed him in June. Three years after the Blueshirts appeared to have finally charted a new course for the makeup of their team, they’re back to attempting to construct a roster that can handle the hard-hitting, gritty style required to make it to the top of the Stanley Cup mountain.
Perhaps, though, there’s real hope that they’ll succeed this time.
The Rangers’ talented top six is all but set – with the exception of the perpetually-in-flux right wing spot on the Chris Kreider-Mika Zibanejad line, those two players and the Panarin-Vincent Trocheck-Alexis Lafreniere unit will comprise the top two forward groups. Trocheck and Lafreniere play with edge, but for the most part, this a skill group that for better or worse, will continue to provide the bulk of the club’s scoring.
Beyond that, though, tantalizing possibilities exist for the bottom two forward units, which could be forged into the type of hard-to-play-against lines for which the Rangers are consistently starved. Between rising youth and a key veteran addition, the Blueshirts might be able to forge a blend of skill and sandpaper that could make them better equipped for the tightly-contested, hard-fought games of the playoffs.
Rangers’ Bigger, Tougher Prospects Starting to Reach NHL
That’s mostly because some of the size and strength that Gorton sought to finally begin bringing into the organization shortly before his dismissal started to graduate to the big club last season. Will Cuylle, the 6-foot-3, 211-pound power left wing who was a second-round pick in 2020, played 81 games as a rookie last season and appeared to cement himself as a key contributor. Though just 22, Cuylle’s throwback, straight-ahead game is just what the Blueshirts require.
Cuylle scored 13 goals with eight assists and ran into everything in sight, recording 249 hits despite averaging only 11:08 of ice time. A strong, fast skater who attacks the net and battles below the circles, expect Cuylle’s role to increase in 2024-25 as an anchor of the third line that will likely include center Filip Chytil and right wing Kaapo Kakko to start the season. The 60th overall selection in his draft will stand up for teammates (four fighting majors last season) and carries plenty of confidence. His game is ideally suited for the postseason, as he recorded 46 hits in 16 playoff games in 2023-24. Figure the arrow will continuing pointing upward for him.
Gorton went big on Cuylle in the second round in 2020, and then he went even bigger in the sixth that year. The Rangers’ pick in that round yielded Matt Rempe, who at this point needs no introduction after perhaps the most eventful rookie season from a fourth-liner in NHL history. Beyond the hype of “Rempemania,” however, the Rangers see a player whose hulking size, uncommon skating ability for a 6-7, 241-pound player and ability to intimidate changed their team’s mindset to one that was more physical, brash and nasty upon his February arrival.
Rempe’s crushing hits drew the ire of opponents, but that’s the point. There’s little question that defensemen felt the presence of the 21-year-old when they went to play the puck in their own zone with Rempe in on the forecheck. All but immovable from in front of the opposing net and nearly impossible for goaltenders to see around, Rempe gives the Rangers a dimension they largely lack outside of Kreider.
Related: Rangers’ Cuylle Deserves Consistent Role Despite Changes to Bottom-6
The big man remains a major work in progress. He mostly stopped fighting after his early flurry of bouts with some of the league’s fellow heavyweights, but the club doesn’t want to lose that element of his game entirely. So huge on skates, Rempe is constantly on watch from referees, who see his elbows up high on hits, usually due more to his stature than a desire to headhunt. The Rangers need him to find the line between being a physical force and a walking minor penalty, something that isn’t going to be easy for him to do given the violent nature of his checks.
Yet there’s probably never been a player like Rempe in the history of the league. He scored the Blueshirts’ first goal of the playoffs last season and possesses a skill level not seen in someone that large. Able to get his huge frame moving at significant speed, he’ll continue to evoke fear in opponents whenever he’s on the ice. The Rangers were a better team with Rempe in the lineup – they went 14-2-1 with him in the regular season and 8-2-1 in the postseason – and there seems little doubt that coach Peter Laviolette will continue to employ him as a crucial member of what could be a consequential fourth line.
“I think I’m built for the playoffs,” Rempe said after his goal against the Capitals in Game 1 of the first round jump-started a 4-1 victory.
That fourth forward unit might be centered by Sam Carrick, the 32-year-old veteran who drew the Rangers’ offseason interest with a consequential playoff performance for the Edmonton Oilers during their run to Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final. Carrick pounded away at opponents, racking up 31 hits in 10 playoff contests, and was also outstanding in the faceoff circle, winning 53 percent of his draws. The 6-foot, 200-pounder fights and would be a perfect running mate for Rempe on a Blueshirt Crash Line.
Signed to a three-year, $3 million contract, Carrick essentially replaces Goodrow for significantly less money, as the latter’s $3.6 million cap hit for the next three seasons predictably became far too high for a bottom-six forward. The Rangers are crossing their fingers that Carrick carries over his play from last postseason to 2024-25. If he doesn’t, he’s easy enough to bury in the minors, though that’s obviously not the outcome the club is hoping for.
Edstrom Is Another Big Forward Who Could Play Key Role in Bottom 6
There’s one other possibility that could emerge in Adam Edstrom, like Rempe a giant on skates at 6-7 and 234 pounds. The 23-year-old returned to the team before Rempe debuted in February – Edstrom made his NHL debut Dec. 15 and scored a goal – and Laviolette spoke of having significant plans for him. Rempe’s arrival soon after, though, seemed to render Edstrom extraneous and he was sent back to the minors in early March after 11 games.
Still, like his fellow sixth-round skyscraper (Edstrom was drafted one year before Rempe), the native of Karlstad, Sweden possesses rare skills for such a huge player. Edstrom skates very well, can put the puck in the net and was an effective penalty-killer in the American Hockey League thanks to his reach, hockey IQ and skating. Able to play all three forward positions, perhaps there’s a giant matchup center who can anchor a future shutdown line waiting to get out.
“He’s a big guy that just skates so well,” Laviolette said in February. “I like his physicality. I like his awareness. He was a player that played good defense (with the Wolf Pack). He killed penalties.”
Edstrom and Rempe spent time together on the fourth line last season, albeit for a small sample size of games. It seems unlikely the Rangers would roll with that long-term this season, but Edstrom will get a chance to make the team out of camp. Even if he doesn’t, Edstrom seems sure to play some role in muscling up the bottom-six forward groups at some point.
So the Rangers might start the season with a third line of Cuylle-Chytil-Kakko, three big forwards who play north-south and like to push the puck relentlessly up ice, and a pair of wingers who work the walls and cycle hard in the offensive zone. They might go into their Oct. 9 opener on the road against the Pittsburgh Penguins with a fourth line that includes Rempe and Carrick, a unit that is sure to provide a significant physical dimension.
There’s size and grit and physicality in those combinations – and defined roles for the third and fourth lines, something the club seems to struggle to create on a perennial basis, regardless of coach. It’s just what the Rangers need. Would it change the makeup of the roster enough for a better-prepared playoff team to emerge, as the Blueshirts thought was happening in their season opener nearly three years ago?
It would be foolish for Laviolette not to invest significant ice time in trying to find out.
