The New York Rangers’ communications release last week showed the world a couple of things. The first was that the team was headed towards a retool, which was pretty evident to anyone who has watched them this season.
The second was that the team needs to move on from the current general manager, Chris Drury, but it’s doubtful they will. The current predicament the Rangers are in can’t be placed squarely at Drury’s feet, but many of the issues the team is going through were the result of his roster management, and the fans have let him and the team know it.
When Drury first took on the role of associate general manager in February 2021, it was clear he would eventually run an NHL team. It didn’t take long.
He was handed the job as president and general manager in May 2021 after the Rangers missed the playoffs and fired president John Davidson and GM Jeff Gorton. That was a banner day for Drury, but it came at a strange time for the franchise, which had been building a solid core of young players and was close to pivoting into a contender.
At the same time, they had missed the playoffs four years in a row and were just two days removed from the notorious Tom Wilson incident at Madison Square Garden. Drury took control and hit the ground running in the summer of 2021.
His summer was clearly shaped by what had happened to the Rangers during the Wilson incident on May 3, 2021. Drury single-handedly re-configured the team, and not in a good way, although they would enjoy some short-term success in 2022 and 2024.
Drury fired head coach David Quinn and replaced him with Gerard Gallant. There was nothing wrong with that move, but Drury then spent the rest of the summer setting fire to the Rangers roster and ultimately a lot of cap space and assets.
Drury started his summer by signing forward Barclay Goodrow to a six-year deal carrying a $3.64MM AAV, meant to bring toughness and grit to the Rangers lineup. It was a massive overpay, panned by many, who agreed that Drury gave too much term and money to a player who wasn’t productive enough.
A week later, Drury moved Pavel Buchnevich to the St. Louis Blues for Sammy Blais and a 2022 second-round pick. The move, which might go down as one of the worst so far in the 2020s, effectively opened a massive hole in New York’s top six that they didn’t have a player to fill.
As if the Buchnevich deal wasn’t bad enough, Drury then signed Patrik Nemeth to an ill-advised three-year deal worth $7.5MM, which the Rangers had to burn two second-round picks to dump on the Arizona Coyotes a year later. At the time, some folks might have claimed it was a good move to move on from Nemeth and open up cap space for other moves (which it was). However, eventually burning through cap space and assets catches up to you, as the Rangers have found out over the last year and a half.
Right after signing Nemeth, Drury made another move to add toughness, trading for Ryan Reaves of the Vegas Golden Knights (for a third-round pick) and giving him a contract extension. Much like with Nemeth and Goodrow, Drury eventually realized he had made a mistake in acquiring the player and had to pivot. Reaves was shipped to Minnesota 16 months after he was acquired for a fifth-round pick.
The summer of 2021 began with Drury significantly misreading the Rangers’ roster. Still, his poor work during that time is often forgotten because he made some good moves the following season at the 2022 trade deadline, acquiring the likes of Andrew Copp and Frank Vatrano and leading the team to the Eastern Conference Finals.
The summer of 2022 and beyond saw better work from Drury, as he traded Alexandar Georgiev for draft picks, moved on from Nemeth and Reaves, sent Nils Lundkvist to the Dallas Stars for a first-round pick, and signed Vincent Trocheck as a UFA. Trading Georgiev was necessary and was probably the best long-term move for the team, while sending Lundkvist to the Stars was a gamble for both sides, but given his poor performance to this point, it was probably a clever play for Drury.
There have been solid moves by Drury, but unfortunately for the Rangers, the wins have been far outweighed by the losses. The rest of 2022 saw the Rangers claim Jake Leschyshyn off waivers and sign defenseman Ben Harpur. They also locked up forward Filip Chytil to a four-year deal that seemed fine at the time but would eventually be moved in the 2025 J.T. Miller trade.
The Trocheck signing yielded immediate results, as the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania native was a seamless fit with the Rangers, providing two-way play and offensive numbers above his career average. Trocheck has offered tremendous value to the Rangers as he crosses the halfway point of his seven-year deal, and he is in the midst of a solid season with New York despite the team’s poor play. Given the rising cap, Trocheck could be a valuable trade chip, although it’s likely the Rangers will want to hang onto him if they are, in fact, completing a retool.
The 2023 trade deadline was one to forget for Drury, as he went all in, trading for Vladimir Tarasenko, Niko Mikkola, Patrick Kane and Tyler Motte. The moves for Mikkola and Motte didn’t push many assets out the door, nor did the Tarasenko trade. But trading for Kane was a move that probably didn’t need to happen after the Tarasenko trade, and it relieved the Rangers of another three draft picks in exchange for a Kane who wasn’t playing at full capacity due to a hip injury.
The wheels came off for the Rangers in the first round of the 2023 playoffs, as they fell to the New Jersey Devils in seven games, in what could best be described as an uninspired performance that showed a lack of leadership.
Drury spent the summer of 2023 overcorrecting this issue, but it appeared to work as the team reached the Eastern Conference Finals once again in 2024. Drury signed aging veterans Blake Wheeler, Nick Bonino, Jonathan Quick, Riley Nash and Erik Gustafsson to low-cost short-term contracts, which produced mixed results. Quick and Gustafsson played well for New York, while Bonino, Wheeler and Nash had minimal impact and didn’t finish the year on the playoff roster. Given the low cost of acquiring the players, they were worth the gamble and, once again, provided Drury with some small wins.
However, in 2024, the wheels really began to come off for the Rangers shortly after they signed goaltender Igor Shesterkin to a record-breaking, $92MM, eight-year extension.
The deal came on the heels of the team trading captain Jacob Trouba to the Anaheim Ducks to create cap space to sign Shesterkin. Trading Trouba made a lot of sense given his high cap hit and minimal production in New York. He’d become a lightning rod for criticism, and it became apparent that the team wanted to get rid of him the prior summer, which they eventually did.
For whatever reason, that series of events appears to have fractured the Rangers’ dressing room, and they’ve never been the same since that fateful weekend in December 2024.
The team has fallen off considerably, and Drury has shown little direction, at times appearing to rely solely on gut instinct. This is, of course, the perspective of an outsider, but the results are what they are. This is a flawed hockey team that has always been flawed, even when it reached the conference finals. Shesterkin’s play masked many of the team’s shortcomings, and Drury overvalued his own roster as a result. Perhaps Drury can lead the Rangers back to contention, but given his work over the past five years, it doesn’t seem likely.
It’s tough to evaluate the last 12 months in a vacuum. Still, Drury has made some franchise-altering moves, including trading for J.T. Miller, moving Chris Kreider to Anaheim, trading K’Andre Miller to Carolina, and signing Vladislav Gavrikov. It’s tough to gauge how everything will work out, but Kreider is flirting with a 30-goal season in Anaheim, while Miller could set a career high in points with the Hurricanes. Miller and Gavrikov have struggled this year, leading to a negative early return on some significant moves Drury made.
Also, the strange Calvin de Haan situation from last spring raises questions about morale within the Rangers organization right now. You either sell winning or you sell hope, and right now the Rangers don’t have either to sell. Drury is locked in under a contract he signed less than a year ago, but given how things have worked out, the Rangers probably need to look elsewhere for someone who can build a championship roster.
FIRE DRURY!!!
You start the recap with “there was nothing wrong” with hiring Gallant? The guy who mismanaged and retarded the development of so many players? Please. That was the first colossal blunder. And yes, Drury’s approach has been a disaster, yet you never mention that it was obviously a direction insisted on by the Rangers moronic owner, James Dolan.
To appease the “writers,” every week, a GM or coach should be fired.
To appease the fans, they should find the replacement from the online forums.
I think I missed the part where he hired Mike Sullivan and let his assistant coach Dan Muse turn the Penguins into a playoff contender
Already have leadership problems . You bring the great J.T miller because wife friends with Trocheck wife. LMAO
Miller was originally drafted by the Rangers. They brought him back to play center, not because of wives.
This entire saga started with Dolan losing patience with rebuilding. Drury has definitely made some good moves, but he’s been a trainwreck overall. Just looks completely out of his depth.
IIRC, they promoted Drury to keep him from the Pens.
And then they traded us Muse for Sully.
The New York Rangers, the friend we didn’t realize we had. Jumping on grenade after grenade for us.
If that’s how you wanna look at it…. Sure go ahead bud. No one’s stopping you.
Certainly not the Rangers.
I hated seeing Davidson go. He’s done well everywhere he’s been. Drury is a complete disaster. Sure, the Truba and Kreider deals were good on paper, but the locker room suffered.
As for Miller being the captain, that’s been a disaster. The guy who said losing wasn’t acceptable and he’d hold people accountable hasn’t been heard from. Complete silence like his stat sheet. No wonder Vancouver was so willing.
The rebuild starts with Drury. No other way.
Tbf he’s been playing a lot better since the new year
That they should fire Drury but won’t is basically the whole article wrap up.
Great article/Documentation, This is a narrative that could fit quite a few current GMs. Look how Trotz has destroyed the Predators in very short period of time,That’s just one of many examples.
At least he made them look good on paper… it’s just the superstars he acquired aren’t performing as expected. Compare him to Drury who completely destroyed this team.
Drury is a lose cannon. There’s no system to what he is doing.
He is a high-volume gambler with unpredictable results, Mike Milbury – like dice roller.
He Should Be On The Hot Seat but he isn’t and he is going nowhere cause this is ‘the proces’ and ‘new culture’ acording to the owner.
And the worst part for Rangers fans is the owner loves it
2 conference finals in 5 seasons. At the time a lot of the moves were head scratchers but in hindsight aren’t nearly as bad as they’re made out to be. He was right to trade Trouba, He was right on signing Goodrow who was huge in the ECF runs and he moved the contract on the waiver wire for free. He got a haul for Miller who isn’t great. The Trocheck signing was A+. Hes actually done a lot more good than he gets credit for
The thing is he didn’t build the core of this team. He took all of glen Sather’s and Jeff Gorton’s work and completely destroyed it. Sure he was right to trade Trouba, but he did it in the wrong way which rubbed the players in the wrong way and caused locker room issues which is why this team is where it is now. Same thing with Goodrow. He overpaid for him and everyone knew it right away. The way he got rid of goodrow…. Goodrow had a NTC and Drury threatened him if he doesn’t accept any trades then he’s just putting him on waivers….. which he did. He took away all of Goodrow’s rights. And it’s true that he got a haul for miller who has trouble making split second decisions with the puck and the Troch signing was great but as everyone says his bad decisions heavily outweigh the good.
I don’t think Sather and Gorton did a very good job drafting or developing. Lafreniere and Kaako were top 2 overall picks and its pretty clear if you seeen them play they never had that kind of upside. They’re more middle 6 talent. The evaluation with the lack of foot speed should have raised some flags along the way. A outsider could see it as Drury overachieving with the lack of top end talent that was brought in during the rebuild.
You can’t put them at fault for drafting them they were both the consensus pick. Developing players is not on the GM that’s more on the coaching staff. And the talent was there but it just never clicked. And Drury had a great core to work with at the time which he didn’t build up at all instead he just brought it all down. Mika,kreids,bread,foxy,strome,copp,kaako,laffy,Shesty. I think that’s a great group of players to build around
I guess it just doesn’t makes sense to me that everyone praises the former GM who did nothing but lose and bring in prospects that didn’t pan out verses the guy who took the team to 2 ECFs in 5 seasons. He made some schrewed moves. Some worked. Some didn’t but the praise for the prior regime is really what I dont get.
Sather and Gorton get praise because they built the foundation of the team, while Drury gets heat for how he’s handled it since. Sather and Gorton fully committed to the rebuild, drafted and brought in the core guys like Fox, Shesterkin, Miller, and Chytil, and set the team up with assets and flexibility for a long window. Drury took over a team that was already ready to compete and went into win-now mode. Yes, they made two ECFs, and he deserves credit for that, but that also raised expectations. Instead of taking the next step, a lot of the same problems kept showing up — 5-on-5 scoring, defense, and roster decisions that limited flexibility. So it’s not that people deny the success, it’s that with the roster he inherited, it feels like the team should’ve gone further under his watch that’s all.
Drury on the hot seat? How about broiling?
It’s really just more of the same to me. Since I was a kid, pretty consistently the rangers have had a top 5 roster on paper but never really managed to do anything with it. If it weren’t for vegas’ antics with acquiring the “shiny new toys”, the rangers would have sole ownership of that reputation. You can blame Drury, or defend Drury, or be indifferent altogether; the real problem is the pressure of that market. Win the cup or you’re a bust. Until they decide to actually commit to a rebuild and development program, with or without Drury, they will just continue this cycle.
The Rangers will never win with Dolan as their owner. He’s an impatient clown.
Drury was a mediocre winger. He’s not a mediocre manager. I’ll be kind