Similar to Jeff Gorton nearly seven years ago, current General Manager Chris Drury wrote a letter to New York Rangers fans, stating that the team would undergo a retool this season.
In the letter, Drury said, “This will not be a rebuild. This will be a retool built around our core players and prospects.” Drury went on to acknowledge that the fans should expect some trades or departures via free agency, saying, “That may mean saying goodbye to players that have brought us and our fans great moments over the years.”
The news was largely expected. Despite wanting to compete for a playoff spot this season, the Rangers are in last place in the Eastern Conference by a three-point margin and are tied for the most games played. Their -21 goal differential is also the worst in the Conference.
After losing defenseman Adam Fox and netminder Igor Shesterkin to injury in early January, there was little hope that New York would be able to climb out of the hole. Still, instead of re-shaping the entire roster, Drury specified a retool, which indicates that the team may only move out expiring assets and reassess next summer.
Regardless, we know of at least one player who won’t finish the 2025-26 season with the Rangers. Shortly after the announcement from New York, Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reported that Drury met with Artemi Panarin, telling him that the team would not be extending him an extension offer, and they would like to move him to a team where he could win the Stanley Cup or sign long-term.
Earlier this week, we assessed some of the hypothetical landing spots for Panarin that were provided by Friedman, namely the Colorado Avalanche, Florida Panthers, Minnesota Wild, and Washington Capitals. Determining Panarin’s trade value is challenging due to the absence of recent comparables for a rental of his significance.
Furthermore, there’s no questioning that Panarin’s market value dipped from today’s news. Publicly, the Rangers remained interested in extending Panarin beyond the 2025-26 campaign. However, considering his full no-movement clause, New York will allow Panarin to pick his next destination, which will likely diminish their potential return.
Meanwhile, the Rangers don’t have many additional expiring assets that will be of much value on the trade market. Joining Panarin as pending unrestricted free agents are Jonny Brodzinski, Conor Sheary, and Carson Soucy. Technically, Jonathan Quick could also be a trade candidate, but the veteran netminder has been pretty rigid in his ‘Rangers or retirement’ attitude.
Assuming Drury waits until the offseason to consider trading the trickier contracts of Mika Zibanejad, Alexis Lafreniere, Vincent Trocheck, etc, there are a few more veterans he may attempt to move this season.
Veterans like Taylor Raddysh, Sam Carrick, and Urho Vaakanainen are only signed through the 2026-27 season, potentially giving the Rangers a few more assets to move. At any rate, the Rangers now have the biggest fish leading up to the March 6th trade deadline.
Photo courtesy of Wendell Cruz-Imagn Images.
Some “core.” Most of their guys are already in their 30s.
He meant to say “corpse.”
The truth is the core never existed due to poor player evaluation, poor player development, or a mix of both. Their two best players from the “rebuild” Panarin and Fox they only have on their team due to trade demands. I think Shesterkin is their only home grown success story.
It’s both. They don’t evaluate well (hence Borgen, Soucy, Raddysh, Sheary) and they don’t develop well (Schneider, Laf, Kakko, Othmann). They need skating and skills coaches. They should be copying the Caps’ personnel–Caps’ skating coach is elite, so their development is elite.
Meh..they have Sullivan who coached Crosby so he is a winner, who cares about skating
They’ve leveraged their future several times in an attempt to win the Cup. When you don’t replenish your team this is the result.
Not all of it was leveraging their future. The Kakko trade is a good example. That’s more like the Flyers trading Nolan Patrick where they gave up on him and got what they could.
I meant coupled with not hitting picks or development, ultimately led to this demise. They tried. That’s more than some fan bases can say.
Panarin stays in NYC and goes to the Isles for Avs 1st, Emil Heinimen and a middling prospect.
This was expected by NYR. No surprise there.
As for Artemi Panarin, there is more teams interested in Panarin then just what Friedman suggested. Of course, who Friedman suggested none of those teams could pull off a trade for Panarin for various reasons. I don’t think Panarin gets traded during the season anyway and as he just waits until he hits the market this summer as more options will be available for him to choose.
He might have a great chance to win a cup NOW! Why would he sit on his hands for that opportunity? It would only be 4 1/2-5 months of his life for a glorious chance!
Then he could pick any team to go to this summer for the next 4-5 yrs.
I understand the possibility of going to a playoff contender but many of them don’t have the assets, cap space, etc to pull it off. It’s just going to be a tough transaction to do unless NYR is highly accommodating which is quite questionable. Could he get traded? Sure…but I’m just not fully convinced a deal will get done unless NYR undersells in the transaction. We’ll see what happens.
Avs could give them Ross Colton for salary, 2027 1st and Ivan.
If AP sez he only wants to go there, then that would be plenty for a rental!
Just trading Ross Colton ($4M) and Ivan Ivan ($845K) wouldn’t be enough. COL only has $2.3M in cap space as Panarin’s cap hit is $11.64M. NYR would have to retain a % which means COL would have to give up likely more draft capital or assets to get NYR to retain. Does COL really want to screw up their entire team and its chemistry on a player who is just a rental?…It’s questionable IMO.
Hahaha we’re screwed 😞
An end to an amazing era of NYR hockey🫡
Good thing that flags fly forever.
Hoping for a similar announcement from the Kings soon, complete with a total front office and coaching staff overhaul, starting with Lucky Luc!
Drury also has to clean up the overabundance of RD’s. Fox is not going anywhere. The jamb-up is at 2RD, Schnieder would be the easiest to move and would get a very nice return, Borgen has a full NMC till July 1 then can be traded to half the league……maybe Drury waits for that and trades Borgan……..Then for 3RD he has cheaper options of Morrow and Robinson, which is fine.
Admittedly not a Ranger fan at all, but maybe I am getting soft in my old age so much so that I feel sad and empathize with the fan base. The front office prematurely blew up this team. Either they misread or their strategy failed miserably.
Please find a way to trade Trotchek to Tampa…
Now this is what the maple leafs organization should do as well! But I’m afraid that MLSE and the others in the front offices are too stubborn and stupid like the dumb SOB Ross Atkins and Mark Shapiro.
Being pro-active is one way to save his job. But really Drury should be resigning. How many fans still believe him being capable of a successful retool?
Approximately 0% of fans.
All I can say is thank God for 1994. At the time I said I didn’t care if they ever won again because I got to see it happen with my father. I guess he heard me and decided to hold me to it. LOL
The Rangers are the Rangers…a failure of a franchise. I have little doubt I won’t see them win another Cup in my lifetime, so I don’t really care who they trade or what ridiculous plans they have for the future. They won’t work. They are the Rangers.
It worked for Gorton until he was shown the door. It won’t work for Drury. I hope Dolan never sees another Cup. Cheers.
Here we go again
Nothing changes until Drury is gone. He is completely and utterly incompetent.
Dolan loves him. That’s where the problems really start.
Retool the GM position first.
Completely agree that front office has to change. I’m a penguins fan and even I can see that it’s absolutely unacceptable for NYR to have one of the best goalies and RD in the league (plus all the high picks from 17’-21’) and not be able to build a high end playoff team around them.
To me they are a failed attempt at a Tampa Bay build
LOL Didn’t they just do this 4-5 years ago???? LOL
Yeah, but they fired coach Quinn in 2021 so they hired him back to finish ‘the porces’😄
Sullivan left the Pens because he didn’t want to be part of a rebuild.
He went to NYR and now they are as bad (worse, actually) than the Pens were the past few years.
Dan Muse (formerly of NYR) comes here and, suddenly, most of the problems that beguiled the Pens the past few years were solved. Getting saves, playing hard, EK65 looking like he cares, the PP clicking…RYAN GRAVES being a useful player.
It’s clear that Sullivan has became stale and crusty.
I didn’t think NYR had a good team but no one thought they were a lottery team.
The US has the best Olympic roster. I do not expect them to win.
Dubas firing Sully was his single best move this year, which is hard because it’s competing with the Brazeau scouting/signing, but no…it’s canning Sullivan.