From Contender to Collapse, How the New York Rangers’ 2024-25 Season Fell Apart – The Hockey Writers –

The 2024-25 New York Rangers were supposed to be chasing the Stanley Cup, not staring down the end of an era. Fresh off two trips to the Eastern Conference Final in three years and having just won the Presidents’ Trophy, they returned nearly the entire core and opened the season like a team ready to finish the job. At 12-4-1, everything pointed toward another deep run.

The Memo

The Rangers started the 2024-25 campaign 12-4-1. After two losses on the West Coast road trip, against the Calgary Flames and Edmonton Oilers, general manager (GM) Chris Drury sent a memo to the other 31 GMs saying that certain players, namely Jacob Trouba and Chris Kreider, were available.

What no one knew at the time was that this was the end of the 2024-25 Rangers. For a team sitting at 12-6-1 and coming off two Eastern Conference Final appearances in three years, it was a surprising moment, but the roots went back years. It truly began when former general manager Jeff Gorton signed Trouba to an eight-year, $8 million average annual value (AAV) contract that proved difficult to navigate later.

The Letter

First, let’s take a step back even further. In the 2017 Stanley Cup Playoffs, the Rangers lost to the Ottawa Senators in six games in the second round. This loss concluded a streak that saw the Rangers go to the postseason in 11 of 12 seasons from 2005-06 to 2016-17. That stretch included two Conference Finals: one in 2011-12 vs. the New Jersey Devils, where they lost in six games, and the other in 2014-15 when they lost to the Tampa Bay Lightning in seven games. They also made one trip to the Stanley Cup Final in 2013-14, where they lost to the Los Angeles Kings in five games, although the series was much closer than five games suggest. It was an incredibly successful twelve years for the franchise, but they could not get over the hump and bring Lord Stanley’s Cup back to Madison Square Garden.

After a 25-24-5 start to the 2017-18 season, on Feb. 8, 2018, Gorton and team president Glen Sather sent out a letter to the fanbase. In their letter, they announced that the Rangers were beginning a rebuild focused on acquiring young, skilled, and character-driven players. They acknowledged the team’s past successes since 2005 but emphasized that the ultimate goal of winning a Stanley Cup had not been met. While warning that…