Reasons why Rangers in retool, not rebuild: ‘this is restless franchise’
At the end of the day, words don’t matter nearly as much as actions and results. Still, when the New York Rangers announced their plan last week to raise a white flag on this season in order to focus on the future, general manager Chris Drury emphasized that this isn’t a “rebuild,” instead choosing the word “retool.”
That’s pretty much semantics. A cynic can argue that Drury and the Rangers are simply trying to soften the blow that changes are coming, some popular players soon will be traded, but, hey, it’s not a complete teardown that can last years.
ESPN’s Emily Kaplan, though, does agree that “retool” is the proper term to describe the Rangers upcoming timeline to rebuild their current roster and organizational depth.
“I think this is a restless franchise in so many ways,” Kaplan said earlier this week on the Morning Cuppa Hockey podcast. “It’s New York. You can’t risk a full rebuild. You’ve got to go for it. Especially, they’re two years removed from one of, if not the best regular season in franchise history.
“We don’t know how long this is going to take, however given the dynamics of New York, with James Dolan as the owner, with Chris Drury as an uber-competitive guy, and when you have a goalie like Igor Shesterkin who masks so many of your mistakes, I don’t think this can be something that is very long term. More realistically, you’re using this as a reset opportunity.”
Need another reason to believe this is more short term than long? Just look behind the Rangers bench, Kaplan says.
“Mike Sullivan, highest-paid coach in the NHL. You don’t hire him in this rebuild or retool situation if you can’t get back on track sooner rather than later,” she explained. “I don’t view this necessarily as a huge step back … I think they’re just cutting their loss on this season, saying we know this isn’t our year and let’s see how we can best prepare ourselves for next year and the year after.”
The Rangers (21-24-6) are last in the Eastern Conference and set to miss the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the second straight season. As Kaplan pointed out, just two seasons ago, the Rangers established franchise records for most wins (55) and points (114), won the Presidents’ Trophy as the top team in the regular season, and reached the Eastern Conference Final for the second time in three years.
The gutting of that roster began last season, when Jacob Trouba, Barclay Goodrow, Kaapo Kakko, Ryan Lindgren, and Filip Chytil were moved out. It continued this past summer when the Rangers traded Chris Kreider and K’Andre Miller. And the next phase is underway, with Artemi Panarin topping the list of those expected to be ex-Rangers soon enough.
Why Rangers GM deserves ‘little bit of credit’ for how he’s publicly, privately going forth with retool plan
What surprises Kaplan is not the roster overhaul, per se. Drury made it clear that he wasn’t happy with its makeup even after the successful playoff run in 2024. Of course, the GM didn’t exactly see this season’s crash and burn either, especially after acquiring J.T. Miller a year ago, and naming him captain in September, to help alter the soft identity that the Rangers carried.
No, it’s that the Rangers did this Letter approach to signal their intentions once before, only eight years ago. They were lauded for being so honest and transparent then. Now? Well, a bit strange to go down that road again with The Letter 2.0.
“In some ways it was shocking,” Kaplan said. “We all kind of knew this was the direction they were heading, especially when I found out what was going on with those Artemi Panarin contract negotiations behind the scenes. But to see them say it so publicly, so shortly after hiring Mike Sullivan as the highest-paid coach in the NHL, was a bit shocking.”
But maybe there was a method to Drury’s madness, to use an old cliche?
“Talking to some people around the League, talking to some people close to the situation, when you think about modern athletes now … they don’t necessarily need to agree why something happens, they just want to know why something happens.
“I don’t know if it was necessary, per see, for the fan’s perspective, but now it emboldens [the Rangers] to have these conversations about any of these players on the roster and not risking the possibility of it leaking out and upsetting the locker room. You put it all out there, you had conversations with all of these guys about exactly where they stand. So, in some element we need to give Chris Drury a little bit of credit here.”
