Why Rangers retool ‘doesn’t feel like quick process’ despite trade deadline
After celebrating the United States’ epic overtime win in the men’s hockey Olympic gold medal game over Canada on Sunday in Milan, it’s back to his day job for Chris Drury. Not that the New York Rangers were ever far from their general manager’s thoughts, of course.
Drury was part of the management team for the United States men’s hockey team at the 2026 Milan-Cortina Olympics. He didn’t receive a medal for his efforts helping put this team together — only the players got them — but Drury did land in the on-ice team photo and get to enjoy one of the true high points of his career.
But the reality for Drury is that he’s judged and remembered far more as the chief decision maker for the floundering Rangers than he is for his role working on Bill Guerin’s management team for the Olympic champs.
So, he’s got some serious work to do. The NHL roster freeze is over, and the March 6 trade deadline is pretty much right around the corner, less than two weeks away. Drury’s already revealed his intentions to retool the roster, and followed through by trading Artemi Panarin to the Los Angeles Kings, and dealing Carson Soucy to the Islanders.
But there’s so much more work to be done. The prospect pool is dry. Organizational depth, especially at the NHL and AHL levels, is embarrassingly lacking. And for the second straight season, the Rangers (22-29-6) won’t make the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
A burst of moves before the trade deadline isn’t going to cure all that ails this franchise.
“To me, it certainly doesn’t feel like a quick process,” The Athletic’s Peter Baugh told Forever Blueshirts on the Rink Rap podcast. “I’m sure the Rangers would like for it to be quick, but just looking at it realistically this is a team where it’s core is getting older, it’s young players and prospects aren’t overly skilled — it’s not a very deep organization.”
Drury stated that he seeks young NHL talent, or NHL-ready players not yet in the League, as key parts of any trade he makes moving forward. Such was the case with the Panarin trade, when the Rangers landed the Kings’ top prospect, forward Liam Greentree, and nothing higher than a conditional third-round draft pick that can become a second-rounder if L.A. wins a playoff round this spring.
The underlying message from the Rangers GM is that a retool is more of a quick process than a complete rebuild. Likely, Drury nor Rangers owner James Dolan has the stomach for an extended rebuild just eight years after the organization first publicly announced plans to re-set in such fashion.
So if, say, the Rangers move freshly-minted gold medalist Vincent Trocheck — who’s got three years left on a contract that pays him $5.625 million annually — ahead of the deadline, what do they seek in return?
“The next few weeks will be very telling,” Baugh stated. “Is it stock up on draft picks? Or is it get younger NHL players or players that are in college or are NHL prospects that you expect to be debuting in the not too distant future?”
Rangers in ‘tricky spot,’ trying to retool quickly
Either way, Baugh contends that this retool is going to take a while because there are so many organizational holes to fill. No matter whom they bring back in trades now or eventually add in free agency during the offseason, the Rangers must also draft better players and do a better job of developing their prospects.
Those aren’t exactly areas that the Rangers excelled in the past decade or more, as evidenced by the complete freefall the past two seasons.
“The starting point has to be the draft,” Baugh explained. “They’re going to have two first-round picks this year, including one that’s going to be really high. If you look at the successful teams, they nail their high draft picks. And you can call it bad luck or you can call it bad scouting or you can call it bad development, but the Rangers really haven’t done that … and that’s really tough to come back from.”
You need not be reminded about top-10 busts like Lias Andersson and Vitali Kravtsov. Nor that Alexis Lafreniere and Kaapo Kakko became good NHL players, just not great ones. And not even how stocking up on multiple first-rounders didn’t quite reap the expected benefits with Nils Lundkvist, and even K’Andre Miller and Braden Schneider.
Acquiring Greentree feels like a good start. He’s 20 and expected to turn pro perhaps as soon as this spring, after a productive OHL junior career. The Rangers must hope Greentree is more Will Cuylle, and less Brennan Othmann.
Baugh also mentioned Malcolm Spence, New York’s top pick (second round, No. 43 overall) in the 2025 draft. The rugged forward has 17 points (eight goals, nine assists) in 32 games as a freshman at the University of Michigan, and projects (like Greentree) as more of a middle-six staple in the NHL.
“These guys are certainly prospects, but you’re not looking at them as franchise-saving, high-octane players.,” Baugh noted. “They’re gonna have to find that somewhere, and that’s probably going to take some time and development. But the Rangers are going to have to show that they’re able to do it.”
As Baugh also added, “It’s a tricky spot to be in” for the Rangers. And don’t think for a second that a successful trade or two ahead of the deadline is all the Rangers need to turn things around.
It looks like it’s going to take awhile.
