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3 reasons the New York Rangers won’t win the Stanley Cup in 2024

By Vincent Parise |
NEW YORK, NEW YORK - APRIL 24: (L-R) Patrick Kane #88, Artemi Panarin #10 and Mika Zibanejad #93 of the New York Rangers confer prior to a second period faceoff against the New Jersey Devils in Game Four of the First Round of the 2023 Stanley Cup Playoffs at Madison Square Garden on April 24, 2023 in New York, New York. (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)
NEW YORK, NEW YORK - APRIL 24: (L-R) Patrick Kane #88, Artemi Panarin #10 and Mika Zibanejad #93 of the New York Rangers confer prior to a second period faceoff against the New Jersey Devils in Game Four of the First Round of the 2023 Stanley Cup Playoffs at Madison Square Garden on April 24, 2023 in New York, New York. (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)
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The New York Rangers are going to come into the season with decent odds to win the Stanley Cup. They have a very good team so people are going to be excited about them.

What is it that makes the Rangers a good team heading into the regular season? Well, for starters, they have one of the best goaltenders in the world. Igor Shesterkin is a beast.

They also have some really good skaters all over the ice. Artemi Panarin, Mika Zibanejad, Chris Kreider, and Adam Fox are four of the great players that they have.

Regardless of all this, the Rangers are for sure not going to win the Stanley Cup for these three reasons:

1. The Metropolitan Division

The New York Rangers are going to have a hard time with the Metro Division.

The New York Rangers won’t even get to the Stanley Cup Final because they have to get through the Metropolitan Division.

As we saw in last year, the Carolina Hurricanes are still ahead of the Rangers and the New Jersey Devils passed them up.

With the addition of Erik Karlsson and others to the Pittsburgh Penguins, you never know how they will be either.

Once the playoffs roll around, Igor Shesterkin won’t be able to save them from the wrath of those teams.

It also doesn’t help that whoever wins the Metro will have to go through the winner of the Atlantic.

With that possibly being one of the Tampa Bay Lightning, Boston Bruins, Toronto Maple Leafs, and Florida Panthers, this conference is not easy.

Most of those teams will have what it takes to bring the Rangers down. Even if they win around in the East, they certainly won’t win three.

(Photo by Rich Graessle/Getty Images)
(Photo by Rich Graessle/Getty Images) /

2. The young players

The New York Rangers have not gotten enough from their young players.

“The Kid Line” got a lot of praise in 2022-23 for some reason. The truth is, however, that the New York Rangers have not developed young players well, at least up front.

Most notably, Alexis Lafreniere and Kaapo Kakko have not turned into the players that we thought they were going to be.

Lafreniere and Kakko, a first and second overall pick respectively, have both become NHL players but not stars as they were expected to.

If these two were amazing alongside some of the veterans that the New York Rangers have, they would be a team with a much better chance of winning. That just hasn’t happened.

There is still time for them to become stars but the early returns are not promising. As long as they are middle-six forwards, the Rangers won’t advance far.

(Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)
(Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images) /

3. Peter Laviolette

The New York Rangers didn’t hire a coach that will give them a great chance.

The New York Rangers fired Gerard Gallant after losing to the New Jersey Devils in the first round of the 2023 Stanley Cup Playoffs.

It seemed like the Rangers might hire a good person to come help them get some of these kids going. Instead, they hired Peter Laviolette.

Laviolette won the Stanley Cup early in his career with the Carolina Hurricanes but has underwhelmed as a coach everywhere since. There were a few nice runs but never resulted in winning the whole thing.

The Rangers could have hired a younger coach that gave them a fresh new feeling but they went with a coach that just keeps getting fired over and over again instead.

This is a franchise that gets in their own way more often than not. It is similar to when they traded for Patrick Kane and Vladimir Tarasenko instead of lesser-known players that can actually help them advance in the year 2023. They will be good but not great this upcoming year.

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