Rangers embarrassment includes being 1st NHL team to miss playoffs twice after winning Presidents’ Trophy

Record: 37-36-7 (10th in Eastern Conference with 2 games remaining)
Previous season: 55-23-4 (114 points)
Win Stanley Cup in Presidents’ Trophy season: No (lost to Florida Panthers 4-2 in Eastern Conference Final)

What happened: Things looked promising for the Rangers when they arrived in Calgary to face the Flames on Nov. 21. They were 12-4-1, had won three in a row and, at least on the outside, looked like a Stanley Cup contender.

Instead, a 3-2 loss that saw Igor Shesterkin face 49 shots was the beginning of a 4-15-0 stretch to close 2024, leaving the Rangers chasing a wild-card berth instead of a Presidents’ Trophy repeat. They’ve demonstrated little consistency during 2025, leaving plenty of points on the table (they are 2-7 in overtime, with six of the losses coming in games they led in the third period) and showing little of the drive and compete level that characterized their play in 2023-24.

One indication of the drop in play: The Rangers are the only team in the NHL this season that hasn’t won a game after trailing by multiple goals. Another: Since their slide began in mid-November, the Rangers haven’t won more than two games in a row; the are 0-4-4 in their eight opportunities to win a third straight game.

The power play, which helped carry the Rangers to the Presidents’ Trophy in 2023-24, is in the bottom quarter of the League rankings. None of their big guns will approach his offensive numbers from the previous season, while Shesterkin and backup Jonathan Quick have had to cope with a barrage of Grade A chances on a nightly basis.

What will follow: GM Chris Drury reworked the roster during the season to try to avoid missing the playoffs, dealing captain Jacob Trouba and forward Kaapo Kakko, the second player taken in the 2019 NHL Draft, among others. What he’ll do – and whether he’ll be around to do it – are major questions facing the franchise, as is the fate of coach Peter Laviolette.

Record: 41-27-14 (96 points; 9th in Eastern Conference)
Previous season: 54-19-9 (117 points)
Win Stanley Cup in Presidents’ Cup season: No (lost to Montreal Canadiens 4-3 in Eastern Conference Second Round)

What happened: The 2014-15 Bruins have the best record of the four teams that missed the playoffs in the season after winning the Presidents’ Trophy. But they paid a huge price for their inability to win shootouts.

Boston went to the tiebreaker 14 times and lost 10 of those games. Offense in general was an issue; Boston had just three players with 20+ goals (Brad Marchand was tops with 24), and Patrice Bergeron’s 55 points led the team – no one else topped 50.

Still, the Bruins and Pittsburgh Penguins were even with 95 points after Boston’s 2-1 shootout win against the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Penguins’ 5-3 road loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets on April 4. It was the Bruins’ fifth straight win – and their last. Neither team fared well in the race to the final night of the season, but the Bruins lost their two games in regulation while the Penguins were 0-2-1.

On April 11, 2015, Pittsburgh shut out the Sabres 2-0 and the Bruins lost 3-2 in (what else!) a shootout to the Tampa Bay Lightning. That left the Penguins holding the second wild card, two points ahead of the Bruins.

What followed: The Bruins came up three points short of a playoff berth in 2015-16, this time losing out to the Philadelphia Flyers. But they made the playoffs in each of the next eight seasons (and got to Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final in 2019) before crashing and burning this season.

Record: 39-31-12 (90 points; 10th in Eastern Conference)
Previous season: 53-22-7 (113 points)
Win Stanley Cup in Presidents’ Trophy season?: No (lost to Ottawa Senators 4-1 in Eastern Conference Final)

What happened: The free agency bug bit the Sabres hard after they matched the 1974-75 team for the best regular-season record in team history. Center Danny Briere, who led the 2006-07 Sabres with 95 points, jumped ship and signed with the Philadelphia Flyers, while Chris Drury, who was second on that team with 37 goals and first with 17 power-play tallies, signed with the Rangers.

With Ryan Miller in goal, the 2007-08 Sabres allowed 242 goals, the exact same number they’d surrendered when winning the Presidents’ Trophy a year earlier. But the departure of Briere and Drury made a big difference on the attack; through scoring was down throughout the League, the Sabres scored 53 fewer goals, finishing with 255 after leading the NHL with 308 in 2006-07.

Buffalo lost its first two games, didn’t get to more than one game above .500 until mid-December and paid a huge price for its inability to win shootouts — the Sabres were 4-9 in the tiebreaker. They didn’t get above seven games over NHL .500 until ending the season with a meaningless 3-0 victory in Boston against the Bruins, who finished four points ahead of Buffalo in the race for the last playoff berth.

What followed: Buffalo missed the postseason again in 2008-09, but won the Northeast Division in 2009-10 with 100 points and qualified for the postseason in 2010-11. However, the Sabres were bounced in the first round each time and haven’t made the postseason since then; their 14-year drought is the longest in NHL history.

Record: 34-39-11 (79 points; last in Patrick Division)
Previous season: 50-25-5 (105 points)
Win Stanley Cup in Presidents’ Trophy season?: No (lost to Pittsburgh Penguins 4-2 in Patrick Division Final)

What happened: Mark Messier’s second season on Broadway was nowhere near as good as his first, when he had his last 100-point season (107) and won the Hart Trophy as League MVP for helping the Rangers lead the NHL in points for the first time since 1942.

The second-round loss to the Penguins in a series they led 2-1 after winning Game 3 in Pittsburgh appeared to have some early hangover effect – enough so that they fired coach Roger Neilson halfway through the season, replacing him with Ron Smith, who had been running their AHL team in Binghamton.

However, the Rangers eventually found enough of their game from the previous season to be alone in third place after a 5-4 road win against the Ottawa Senators on March 22. Despite having lost star defenseman Brian Leetch with a season-ending ankle injury, they were just two points out of second place – but only one point ahead of the fourth-place New Jersey Devils and three in front of the New York Islanders.

Then the roof fell in. The Rangers were 0-3-1 in their next four games, including a damaging 3-2 overtime loss to the Islanders at the Garden on April 2. After a 4-0 road win against the Washington Capitals two nights later, the Rangers lost their last seven games, all in regulation and six within the Patrick Division. They ended up last in the division at 34-39-11, becoming the only team in NHL history to finish below .500 the season after winning the Presidents’ Trophy.

What followed: The greatest season in Rangers history – and the only Stanley Cup championship in the past 85 years. On the day after the ’92-93 season ended, general manager Neil Smith axed Ron Smith and replaced him with Mike Keenan, who had been fired as GM by the Chicago Blackhawks after stepping down as coach. Keenan’s lone season in New York ended with a parade down the Canyon of Heroes, a trip the Rangers had hoped to make after this season as well.