Do Rangers need to retool, rebuild … or blow it up, start over?
New York Rangers general manager Chris Drury made it clear in his letter to fans on Jan. 16 that the team was about to enter a retooling — but added that “this will not be a rebuild.” However, with the Rangers plummeting like a stone to the bottom of the Eastern Conference standings, losing their past three games, six of seven and 14 of 17, it’s fair to ask if there’s really a difference between the two processes.
The Rangers made a minor trade this week, sending defenseman Carson Soucy to the Islanders for a third-round pick in the 2026 NHL Draft. Big deal – they bought another lottery ticket. Similarly, they claimed Vincent Iorio off waivers from the San Jose Sharks on Saturday. A former second-round pick (No. 55 overall) in the 2021 draft by the Washington Capitals, the big (6-foot-4, 220 pounds) 23-year-old defenseman is worth a shot, but, yes, is another lottery ticket.
They’re holding team scoring leader Artemi Panarin of the lineup for what’s euphemistically known as “roster management” – in other words, the Rangers want to make sure he won’t get hurt before they can trade him.
But the market for “Bread” figures to be limited by his no-movement clause, the Rangers’ decision not to offer the pending free agent a new contract, and the fact that the 34-year-old and his agent reportedly want a “home run” contract extension in place before they OK a deal. That could come today, before the Olympic trade freeze that begins Thursday, before the NHL Trade Deadline on March 6 – or not at all.
With a few exceptions (center Mika Zibanejad being the most obvious), the Rangers play like a team that needs to be stripped down to the studs for a complete overhaul – exactly what Drury indicated he wasn’t going to do. He wrote of focusing on obtaining “young players, draft picks and cap space that allow us flexibility moving forward.”
Left unsaid is who he would use this cap space on. Panarin would arguably be the best free agent available on July 1, and Drury already ruled out bringing him back. All the potential big names re-upped with their current teams.
Yes, injuries to cornerstones like goaltender Igor Shesterkin and Adam Fox helped sink this season – but the Rangers aren’t the only team that’s had to contend with serious injuries to key players. More important is that they are an older, slower team that keeps making the same mistakes game after game and shows no signs that anything will change.
Their 6-5 loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins on Saturday was a perfect example.
As has been the case too often this season, the Rangers chased the game before they knew what hit them. Their inability to break the puck out of their own zone, with turnovers leading directly to goals, is a go-to for the Rangers and allowed the Penguins to go up 2-0 before the first media timeout.
“It’s a bit of a s***storm in the D-zone,” center Vincent Trocheck said. “Whenever you’re trying to break pucks out, we’ve got to be a lot tighter and try to support guys from a closer spot, just to make it even that much easier to come out as a group of five. That’s the only way you can really fix that.”
That’s a broken record Blueshirts fans are tired of listening to. This was the third time in the past six games — and 18th time this season — that the Rangers allowed the opponent to score in the first five minutes of a game.
Retool, rebuild or more? What’s next for Rangers?
“I’d like to think we’re very prepared and motivated and ready to start the game,” Miller said in a postgame speech he should have on an audio loop. “We talk about it all the time, but we’re not really executing that game plan. Other teams are getting out to better starts, so obviously, it’s an issue for us. But I’m just trying not to be negative. I don’t know what to say. I feel like we’re ready to go. When we go on the ice, we’re ready to play the game. Then we get out there, and they jump out to the lead, it seems like a lot of nights. So, it’s definitely something we’ve got to try to shore up.”
Stop me if you’ve heard this before. Oh, and don’t be fooled by the final score — the Penguins led 5-1 with less than 11 minutes remaining. Turning a big loss into a one-goal loss means nothing. Moral victories aren’t the end goal here.
The Rangers counted on rookie defenseman Scott Morrow, the key piece they received from the Carolina Hurricanes in the K’Andre Miller trade on July 1, to pick up some of the slack after Fox was injured on Jan. 5. Instead, he continues to show that he’s not ready for the NHL. The 23-year-old committed one turnover that led to a first-period goal, took a hooking penalty later in the period and finished minus-2 while logging 14:50 TOI.
His underlying metrics, per Natural Stat Trick, aren’t terrible 5v5 for a third-par rookie defenseman. But the eye test isn’t great, nor are his six assists in 28 games.
Meanwhile, the Penguins are on track to end a three-year absence from the Stanley Cup Playoffs because they’ve finally found some young talent to augment future Hall of Famers Sidney Crosby (38 years old), Evgeni Malkin (39), Kris Letang (39) and Erik Karlsson (35). One of those players is Ben Kindel, an 18-year-old forward who scored his 12th goal Saturday and was a shrewd first-round pick at No. 11 overall last June.
The Rangers have plenty of thirty-somethings skaters on the roster, but none anywhere near the level of the Penguins’ senior quartet: Zibanejad, Miller and Trocheck, the three highest-scoring forwards who dressed Saturday, are all 32. Each has a long-term contract that includes some form of trade protection.
So, where’s all the Rangers’ young talent? Good question.
Drury sacrificed their 2025 first-round pick in the trade that brought Miller from the Vancouver Canucks last Jan. 31; the Canucks quickly wheeled it to the Penguins for defenseman Marcus Pettersson. The Rangers look like they’ll get a top-five (if not No. 1 overall) pick in the 2026 draft, as well as the Dallas Stars’ pick, which should come late in the opening round.
They better hope this high pick works out better than No. 1 overall selection they got six years ago, when they chose forward Alexis Lafreniere. Despite his two-goal, three-point outing against the Penguins, the 24-year-old has yet to develop into an impact player and is in the first season of a seven-year contract.
The Rangers also had picks within the top nine in each of the three drafts before 2020; none of those players is still with the team.
Brennan Othmann, taken with the No. 16 pick in 2021, has yet to show he can play at the NHL level. Forward Gabe Perreault, selected No. 23 in 2023, shows flashes of skill and looks like an NHL player, but the 20-year-old needs more size and speed to augment his smarts and skill. Noah Laba, a 2022 fourth-rounder, is a bright spot this season, regularly centering the third line as a rookie – but that looks like his ceiling (and he left the game Saturday with an injury).
Not exactly a rosy outlook.
In another world, a GM whose team went from Presidents’ Trophy winners to bottom feeders in two years would be a logical candidate to be fired as the first part of a retool/rebuild/whatever you want to call it. But Rangers owner James Dolan went on WFAN radio early last month to tell the world that Drury was his guy. Dolan’s reward was watching the Rangers do their best Wile E. Coyote imitation and run right off a cliff.
The Rangers had some dreary stretches in their history. Most of the past 25 years of the Original Six Era were dreadful, as were the late 1970s, the late 1990s through 2004 and the “Letter 1.0” stretch from 2017-21. The 2024-to-whenever span has the potential to join this Forgettable Foursome.
The question isn’t whether the Blueshirts need to rebuild or “just retool.” It’s whether they can pull a rabbit out of a hat, inject young talent into a system that has very little of it, and figure out how to get the most out of the players they keep while getting the most value for the ones they don’t.
For that, they might need a magician rather than a general manager.
