New York Rangers general manager Chris Drury doesn’t need to apologize for trying to trade Jacob Trouba during the offseason. He doesn’t have to beg forgiveness for putting Barclay Goodrow on waivers, paving the way for the San Jose Sharks to claim him. And he wasn’t in the wrong for recently making it known to other GMs that the Blueshirts were willing to listen to trade offers for Trouba, Chris Kreider and others.
On the contrary, Drury should be doing all of this and more as he looks for solutions to the malaise and losing surrounding a club that was within two victories of the Stanley Cup Final in the spring, but has regressed significantly this season amidst a sense of grievance and breakdown of team leadership and structure.
The Rangers’ 13-10-1 record is a deceiving metric that’s a product of a soft early schedule and brilliant goaltending that has allowed them to compete in and win games in which they’ve been thoroughly outplayed. The Blueshirts opened 5-0-1 and were 12-4-1, but have since dropped six of seven – all in regulation – in a stretch that is much more indicative of how poorly they’ve played in 2024-25.
This team isn’t just bad defensively, unable to sustain offensive-zone pressure and almost completely without a physical element to its game. It is surrounded by negativity, with bad on-ice body language and a seeming lack of effort, emotion and general interest belying an outfit that has gone off the rails. Much of that might stretch back to Trouba’s effective blocking of a trade in July and the successful clearing of fourth-liner Goodrow’s bloated contract in late June, or maybe it’s something else that surfaced during a training camp in which warning signs of what was to come abounded.
Drury Needs to Figure Out Which Players Want to Remain on Broadway
Whatever the problem is, Drury should feel fully empowered to do whatever is necessary to remove it from his roster.
If the Rangers, who have compiled three consecutive 100-point seasons and won the Presidents Trophy in 2023-24, are indeed sulking over personnel decisions and supposed slights surrounding them, it’s unacceptable. In the NHL, as in any other major sports league, players are often unceremoniously disposed of. Salaries become unwieldy, front offices seek change, players are coveted in trades. It’s the price of competing in the best hockey league in the world, and to employ a cliched yet accurate saying –…
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