Why Gabe Perreault arrival latest changing of the guard for Rangers
The winds of change that started to blow last summer continue, even with the New York Rangers entrenched in a tight race for the final playoff berth in the Eastern Conference.
Gabe Perreault’s arrival this week was the next changing-of-the-guard moment for the Rangers. Before him young forwards Brennan Othmann and Brett Berard were recalled for the minors, and there was increased playing time for Matt Rempe and Adam Edstrom, before each was injured.
That group is now part of a group of young 20-somethings on a roster that also includes Alexis Lafreniere, Braden Schneider, K’Andre Miller and 2025 Steven McDonald Extra Effort Award winner Will Cuylle. Miller is the old man of the group — and he just turned 25 in January. Edstrom is 24. None of the rest is older than 23.
Firm in his conviction that the core of the team that reached the Eastern Conference Final twice in the past three seasons has gone as far as it was going to go, general manager Chris Drury’s initial attempts to remake his roster were somewhat stymied by last summer’s Jacob Trouba affair — the effects of which have reverberated throughout this disappointing season.
Undeterred, the GM went right back to work on what has been a season-long renovation project – one that yielded what looks like a burgeoning youth movement, which ironically enough will go a long way toward determining whether the Rangers will reach the Stanley Cup Playoffs for a fourth straight season.
That group (minus the injured Rempe and Edstrom), including Perreault making his NHL debut, helped the Rangers win 5-4 in overtime over the Minnesota Wild on Wednesday at Madison Square Garden. With seven games left, the Rangers are percentage points behind the Montreal Canadiens for the second wild card in the East.
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The Rangers added a potential star to the mix with Perreault. The 19-year-old wing arrives on Broadway after a dominant two-season run for Boston College, when he had 108 points in 73 games. The son of former NHL center Yanic Perreault also brings a pair of gold medals from helping the United States win the World Junior Championship in 2024 and 2025.
Perreault made his NHL debut and played 13:38 in the desperately-needed overtime victory over the Wild. He was generally impressive, skating primarily with J.T. Miller and Lafreniere at even strength and setting up a couple of golden scoring chances by Jonny Brodzinski with his slick passing. He also received three minutes of power-play time and finished with three shots on goal.
“I thought he was really good,” Rangers coach Peter Laviolette said postgame. “You can see his game and the way he thinks the game out there. I thought he jumped in and looked good.”
The 2023 first-round pick didn’t look out of place playing against men in the NHL. He even had a last-second attempt to win the game in regulation. Though denied by Wild goalie Filip Gustavsson, it was a positive sign that Laviolette trusted the kid to be out there in that situation.
“His hands and his head are at a level where he can contribute [in the NHL],” Laviolette explained.
Drury’s desire is to give the kids a big opportunity together even with a playoff spot hanging in the balance, and finally, at long last, start returning a grinding, lunch-pail ethos to a team that has been pivoting away from it toward an imbalance of skill for some time.
Perreault may not fit the heavy grinding model — he’s a skilled, cerebral player through and through. But in Othmann, Berard, Cuylle, Lafreniere, Rempe and Edstrom — all draft picks of the organization — the Rangers have a pool of young players who play that style. In the grand plan at least, they’ll follow the lead of veteran centers Vincent Trocheck and in-season acquisition J.T. Miller to help turn the forward corps into a straight-line, hard-working, net-crashing outfit that can compete in the corners, win puck battles and attack the net.
After a season of relying on the aforementioned veterans to a fault, Laviolette seems to have finally seen the light on youth being the only narrow pathway to the playoffs – or at least, having recognized that the organization is in the midst of unstoppable change that should ramp up even more this summer.
Othmann is a big part of that. The 22-year-old is a banger with skill — he scored 50 goals one season in junior and had 21 as a rookie pro with Hartford in the American Hockey League last season. He nearly had his first NHL goal against the Wild, but his slam dunk on the doorstep was kept out by Gustavsson, who made a strong pad save.
“He just has to keep doing what he’s doing because he’s getting those looks and opportunities,” Laviolette said about the 2021 first-round pick. “He’s playing hard, playing the right way.”
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After all, Laviolette had to conclude at some point what has been apparent for some time: that the old guard has become just that, harsh as it sounds. The Chris Kreider-Mika Zibanejad combination, which fueled the Rangers for so long, has grown stale and ineffective, with both players possibly (and perhaps likely) playing their final stretch of games in Blueshirts. If they go, they’ll join Trouba, Ryan Lindgren and Barclay Goodrow as players whom Drury viewed as part of the past, not pillars of the future.
The Rangers drift away from will and toward skill unquestionably played a significant role in talented teams falling short of the Stanley Cup Final in 2022 and 2024. Success in the NHL playoffs comes from playing in straight lines that lead to the front of the net, and from the desire to win one-on-one competitions for pucks and space in the dirty areas of the ice.
The 2024-25 Rangers simply didn’t show nearly enough of that to avoid significant change, one season after the club set franchise records for wins (55) and points (114).
To that end, youth is being served at Madison Square Garden. Major moves are still coming in the offseason, but the lineup Wednesday is the best indicator yet of where Drury has been trying to take the team since it was beaten up by the physical Florida Panthers in the Eastern Conference Final last spring.
Whether this eager, fresh-looking group has what it takes to help the Rangers sneak into the playoffs remains an open question. But the fact that Drury and the organization view the kids as their best chance to get into the postseason speaks volumes, both for the rest of 2024-25 and the seasons beyond.
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