The New York Rangers embarked on a rebuild in 2018, announcing to their fans their intentions in a formal release. By doing so, the Rangers exercised a great deal of transparency and, in turn, bought a lot of goodwill with their fans and presumably gave themselves a ton of runway to rebuild their team correctly. They started the process with immense promise, moving on from overpriced veterans while accumulating high draft picks and a solid stable of young prospects. The future looked so bright just a few years ago, and yet, here, the Rangers are on the verge of missing the playoffs.
The Rangers hit on many of their initial trades. They had lottery luck, drafting Kaapo Kakko second overall in 2019 before winning the first overall pick in 2020, a pick they used to draft forward Alexis Lafrenière. Somewhere around this time, an impatience grew that would undo much of the good the team had done to that point. The Rangers pivoted from concerning themselves with player development. Instead, they focused on becoming competitive quickly, which ultimately hurt the development of players like Kakko and Lafrenière, who were forced to play in sheltered roles rather than gaining valuable experience at the top of the lineup.
The Rangers’ lack of patience ultimately resulted in them bringing in multiple veteran players who cost precious future assets, ate away at cap space, and, in the end, made the team top-heavy. Bringing in Artemi Panarin through free agency was a massive piece of business and, ultimately, a terrific signing. However, it forced the Rangers to accelerate their plans not to throw away Panarin’s prime years.
Many of their other moves for veterans didn’t turn out so well. The Rangers acquired defenseman Jacob Trouba from the Winnipeg Jets back in 2019, and at the time, they believed they were getting a bona fide top-pairing defenseman. Trouba was paid like one, signing a seven-year contract extension for $56MM a month after the Rangers acquired him, but his play never reflected what the Rangers were paying him. Trouba wasn’t a liability, but he never performed like a top defenseman and was ultimately moved to the Anaheim Ducks in a salary dump.
While the Trouba move was troubling, it is just the tip of the iceberg in a series of moves that ultimately undid much of the solid early work the Rangers had done to kick off their rebuild. The Pavel Buchnevich trade with St. Louis was an unmitigated disaster as he developed into a point-per-game player with the Blues. His absence created a need for the Rangers to go out and spend additional future assets to acquire replacements. This led the Rangers to make moves for Andrew Copp and Frank Vatrano in 2022, eventually trading more futures to acquire Patrick Kane and Vladimir Tarasenko at the 2023 NHL Trade Deadline. These moves in a vacuum were sensible ones to make. Still, they did nothing to elevate New York, as they were ultimately dumped in the first round by the New Jersey Devils in 2023, and both Kane and Tarasenko walked in free agency, as did Copp and Vatrano the year prior.
While the players’ on-ice performance has left much to be desired, the disappointments fall heavily on management and coaching. Particularly the underwhelming development of multiple top draft picks. The Rangers had incredible turnover behind the bench in just a few years, going from David Quinn to Gerard Gallant and Peter Laviolette. Each coach brought a different vision, and the instability wreaked havoc on the psyche of young players trying to find their way. Lafrenière and Kakko never became elite stars, not yet anyway, and this forced the Rangers to lean more heavily on veterans, which altered the team’s trajectory.
Of course, the management change occurred in 2021, when the Rangers fired general manager Jeff Gorton and team president John Davidson in favor of former Rangers captain Chris Drury. Drury’s aggressive style fit what the Rangers tried to do in the summer of 2021, but far too many of his moves have worked out poorly, and he has spent more time undoing his own mistakes than improving the Rangers roster.
Returning to the summer of 2021, this was ultimately the series of events that took the Rangers from potential cup contenders into what they are today. New York was responding to the Tom Wilson incident in May 2021, where Panarin was nearly injured, and the team gave Drury a mandate to make the Rangers tougher. Drury did precisely that, sacrificing skill to bring in the likes of Ryan Reaves, Barclay Goodrow, Patrik Nemeth, Dryden Hunt and Jarred Tinordi. The moves ultimately didn’t work out, and that summer now looks like the turning point in the Rangers rebuild. Sure, they were able to win a President’s Trophy and make a playoff run after it, but it changed the course of a team that looked to be on their way to the top. It was eerily similar to what the Pittsburgh Penguins did after their second Stanley Cup in a row in 2017 when then-general manager Jim Rutherford took exception to Wilson’s aggression in the Washington/Pittsburgh second-round series (which Pittsburgh ultimately won) and traded a first-round pick and Oskar Sundqvist for Reaves. That summer proved to be a turning point for the Penguins, as they’ve only won a single playoff series since after rattling off eight straight series wins on their way to two championships.
Now, credit where it is due: Drury hasn’t been afraid of course correcting, evidenced by him flipping out Reaves, Goodrow and even Reilly Smith a short time after acquiring them despite the negative optics. In all three of those cases, Drury sold lower than he bought. While those moves were all tinkering around the edges of the roster, those mistakes began to add up. Eventually, they accounted for some of the predicament that the Rangers find themselves in.
New York rebuilt oppositely from their division counterparts, the New Jersey Devils. While they blocked upward mobility for their top draft picks, the Devils played their top picks in prominent roles and let them learn from their mistakes, which helped speed the development process. New Jersey was patient in the process and waited to acquire help for their young core, doing so over the past two years to fill in the gaps around their top young stars. Whether the Devils’ approach was right or wrong remains to be seen. Still, they indeed appear to be in a more advantageous position as their contention window is wide open. In contrast, the Rangers are at the end of their season without a first-round pick this year or possibly next, depending on where they finish in the standings.
New York also has no identity at the moment. They don’t appear to be a team in win-now mode, and they aren’t a young team on the upswing. They are in the mushy middle, the worst place to be in today’s NHL.
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They got impatient and never truly built a solid team. They were an aberration supported by good goal tending and a good power play.
Yep. I don’t think people remember how most fans assumed the Rangers were in for some lean years (a la Boston today) before the team suddenly found immediate rebound success. That success was the outlier, it was always looking like a hefty rebuild.
Seconded. After the Laviolette hiring, saw an article from a frustrated Rangers blogger saying something to the effect of “this team never learns. You really think that first Gallant and now Laviolette are the right coaches for developing Kakko, Lafreniere, Schneider, etc.? This is a team that never learns from their mistakes. They’ll probably go on another deep playoff run on the strength of their Top 6, PP and Shesterkin, but if they can’t win a Cup, this is going to catch up with them sooner or later.”
Pretty much nailed everything.
Spot on. I don’t think they had the right coaches in place. Personally I believe the coaches were/are limited to their systems. Other teams figured them/it out. Good example is the power play.
Rangers need to invest in a ‘good’ coach. Someone who can adjust to the talent of the team rather than the team conforming to a system. I do believe they have the talent to compete with the best, but they need to right the ship now otherwise it will be a rebuild situation. Thankfully they have a couple of kids who should only get better with time and experience.
Rangers & Giants need new leadership…ASAP
It went wrong when they basically won the lottery back to back years and ended up with mediocre players
What “mediocre” players? No, Lafreniere isn’t among the league leaders in scoring. But he’s become a consistent top-six winger who’s defensively responsible from a young age. Take the win.
Laffy is okay but he has done nothing to earn that contract. The next two players drafted in Byfield and Stutzle are much better too
Pulling a flower to make it grow faster never gives a good result in the end, message to Drury
Wasn’t smart giving up their #1 this year or next. Either one could be a prime pick
Maybe the article could mention that trading for a 32yr old JT Miller and his remaining years at 8schmil hasn’t helped?
If I were Drury, I would give Pittsburgh the pick this year, even if it’s top 10. They won’t “be back” next year, and they could easily slide to the bottom of the heap. This is a pretty weak draft with only 3-4 guys who are projected to be stars. I guess if they win the lotto, they should keep it and draft Schaefer or Misa, but they could be giving up a shot at McKenna next year.
You could argue whiffing on Lafrenière and Kakko was just it.
It wasn’t a whiff exactly in my mind, but they failed to adjust their plans to actually develop the players. Kakko has been much better in Seattle because they’ve given him steady playing time and the ability to make mistakes without a knee-jerk reaction to sit him, and Lafreniere has been bumped down in the pecking order several times and probably won’t be anything more than a streaky boom or bust scorer. But still can’t help but think about how the NYR lineup would look with Tim Stutzle in the #2C spot.+
Solid article, Josh.
The one constant this team has had since winning the Cup is ownership. Dolan has been involved with this since Cablevision (which was owned by the Dolan family) bought the team. Look what’s been done to the Knicks. You have an owner who has no patience with re-building. He wants people in the seats at MSG, and the potential drop in revenue that could come when a team isn’t a contender year-in and year-out is something that he can not abide.
I’ll be very surprised if Laviolette isn’t fired (scapegoat) or there aren’t major trades (more of Drury’s getting back less than what he paid for). Before the Trouba trade this fall, Drury did tell the league that every plauer was up for sale.
This is a good article that pinpoints a lot of the problems — which are manifold. Dolan and Sather should’ve worked it out with Gorton & JD. Gorton has moved on to masterfully and slowly build a contender in Montreal, allowing the players to grow under a first-time coach who lets the young guys find their game. Drury hired Gallant and Lavi.
Would Laffy and Kaako have thrived under MSL (or Knoblauch)? We’ll never know — those were weird pics. Neither were great skaters (the slow-footed roster construction might actually be the real reason they never got over the top — and once Kreider lost a step, they were left with Bedard as the only guy who could skate), which should have been a red flag, but Kaako was projected to be NHL-ready and the Devils were rumored to have considered him. Laffy might have dropped a la Shane Wright had it not been a Covid season, but he was considered can’t-miss.
When they both missed, Drury short-circuited and threw the team under the bus. They never got out from under it.
They also need better marketing. Pick a narrative, add some hero spin and develop a culture. People are desperate for entertainment and will continue to buy tickets regardless of whether the team wins or not, and they’ll leave happy if they have personal and potentially-achievable goals to focus on. That may sound deeply cynical, but you win the cup one game at a time.
rangers did what a lot of other unsuccessful teams have done and quit mid rebuild.. and transitioned into a perpetual reload phase .. which ends up stalling the progress made by the prospects they drafted .. while the team keeps chasing it’s tail
Shesterkin’s goaltending covered for alot of deficiencies that the Rangers had, which likely gave them a false sense of their team in recent years. They still have some good players, but they’re kind of a hodgepodge roster right now.
Thanks Josh, I needed a positive news story with all the negativity in print media out there these days ;-)
“Where Did The Rangers Rebuild Go Wrong?” – not enough matches or Napalm.
Not mentioning how fox forced his way to them is wild. They lucked into a number 1 defensemen, had a franchise goalie and 2 top 2 picks. They thought they could just backfill everything else.
Draft and Develop. Doesn’t work when you draft skilled offensive players and try and fit them into your stifling system instead of letting them play their games. I get that every team has a system but sometimes you need to trust the player’s talent will win out in the end. Can’t hold one group of players, in this case, the high draft picks, to a different standard than high paid vets who don’t want to listen to coaches but never get punished the way younger players do.
Firing Gorton was beyond foolish. Too bad Dolan can’t be fired.
I see two things not yet mentioned…
One, they were getting ready to dump Kreider and give Lafreniere his job but Kreider rebounded into a 50 goal scorer and it never gave Lafreniere the room to develop properly.
Two, their D corps isn’t good and Fox is overrated. I only see him 10-12 times a year but I’ve always seen a guy who was closer to peak Tyson Barrie as opposed to peak Drew Doughty.