Why Rangers GM shouldn’t stop reshaping roster after Jacob Trouba trade
For a different team, in a different situation, the recent remarks of New York Rangers general manager Chris Drury would have made sense.
Drury’s news conference Saturday followed some impressive work two days before, when the GM executed a necessary trade of disgruntled captain Jacob Trouba and signed star goaltender Igor Shesterkin to an eight-year, $92 million contract extension. As productive as Drury’s efforts were, however, his words to the media missed the mark.
“We certainly are not opposed to making more changes,” he said. “But big picture, with that said, the team’s been through a lot the last couple weeks, and certainly this week. We’d like to let the dust settle a little bit.”
Forgive the second guess, but … the Rangers have been far too settled this season, and it’s showed. Now is not the time to let things calm down – Drury must keep working on a roster that doesn’t appear close to being a championship one.
Related: Rangers reportedly rejected Cam Fowler addition in Jacob Trouba trade
Jacob Trouba trade hasn’t changed Rangers fortunes
The trade of Trouba to the Anaheim Ducks cleared $8 million off the club’s salary cap through the 2025-26 season and moved an unhappy player whose time in New York was at an end. What the deal didn’t do was make the Rangers a tougher team to play against. It didn’t change their laid-back, often-emotionless personality. It didn’t make them more capable of getting to the opponent’s net or winning battles in the dirty areas.
It doesn’t seem to have made them any more responsible defensively, as evidenced by their disheartening 7-5 loss to the Seattle Kraken on Sunday, and their 2-1 defeat to the last-overall Chicago Blackhawks on Monday — both at Madison Square Garden. The Rangers are 2-8-0 in their past 10 games and 9-12-0 since a 5-0-1 start.
This group shouldn’t be allowed to “settle” in. On the contrary, the shakeup needs to be ongoing – both from the standpoint of waking players up, and with changing the makeup and personality of the team.
The Rangers’ lack of attention to detail and nonexistent commitment to defense has been a constant all season. The Blackhawks first goal was the culmination of yet another sequence that has epitomized the Blueshirts throughout 2024-25. Struggling Mika Zibanejad either fanned on the puck or didn’t bang it hard enough around the boards in his own zone, leading to a turnover; Taylor Hall, stationed behind the net ended up with it and fired a pass across the middle of the ice that two Rangers (including Zibanejad) watched go by. It ended up on the stick of Tyler Bertuzzi, who zipped it past Shesterkin at 8:10 of the opening period.
The past two losses encapsulated what ails the Rangers this season. Seattle fully leveraged New York’s penchant for extended defensive lapses, endlessly leaving their goalie to do it all himself. The Rangers led 3-1 before giving up five straight goals between the second and third periods.
Chicago, which had dropped five straight when it arrived at MSG and fired coach Luke Richardson last week, then did what so many opponents have also done to New York this season: thoroughly outworked them. With the Blackhawks carrying the play — they posted a 63.6 expected goal share for the game, per Natural Stat Trick, despite now ranking 28th in the League with a 44.4 mark — the Rangers were again unable to generate sustained offensive zone pressure. Their limited quality chances generally came on pretty passing plays that don’t represent a sustainable formula for success.
“I believe the second period and third period, the effort dipped from where it was in the first, and the execution got worse,” an increasingly frustrated coach Peter Laviolette said.
“The only answers are going to come from that room. We’ve got to be better than we were tonight.”
The Rangers’ core requires a kick in the rear. Allowing players time to supposedly go back to what they’ve been doing has led to many goals like Bertuzzi’s, which was the product of almost comically bad breakdowns that keep occurring.
Related: Former Rangers goalie Alexandar Georgiev shipped to Sharks in stunning trade
Rangers core still requires significant overhaul
That means Drury should continue to shop players like Kreider, one of the few veterans with big contracts who might be tradeable, and even young defenseman K’Andre Miller, who has taken steps backward over the past two seasons and doesn’t appear to be progressing anymore.
That isn’t about singling out or punishing individuals. It’s about exploring every avenue to transform a flawed roster into one that competes with more physicality, more simplicity in attacking the net, more emotion and overall commitment on a nightly basis. This group as constructed is simply too vanilla — not fast or big or responsible enough in their own zone to say they do anything at an elite level other than tend goal.
Acquiring Brady Tkachuk from the Ottawa Senators might have always been a pipe dream, but he is precisely the kind of player and scale of trade that Drury should be pursuing. The GM, by the way, might want to let that odd situation cool down a little and perhaps re-engage the Senators, who, like the Rangers, are looking to shake things up, to see if the Rangers might actually have a trade partner there.
Something isn’t right. Whether the players are still sulking over Trouba, or even the cold cutting of ties with Barclay Goodrow in June, Drury can’t worry about anyone’s feelings. Being amenable to any trade possibility accomplishes two objectives: It keeps the door open on a much-needed reshaping of the roster, and it puts everyone on notice, thereby reinforcing a culture of accountability. Newly armed with significant cap space that could reach around $22 million by the trade deadline, it would be irresponsible for the GM to stand pat.
Now is not the time to allow the Rangers to settle back in. On the contrary, the club is better off with no one feeling that his spot is safe.
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