There is no easy way to say this: we don’t know what to make of the New York Rangers. Ever since winning the Presidents Trophy two seasons ago, all the team has done is tread water. They should, on paper, be good enough to make the playoffs. Early returns from this season, especially their woes at the world’s most famous arena, aren’t painting a more positive picture.
Let’s look back to those few glory seasons of recent memory. You know, the ones when the Rangers showed some of the building blocks of being a perennial cup threat. That run might have only lasted a few years. That run was also sandwiched in between two very different letters from upper management. Let us explain.
The first letter came during the 2017-2018 season. The Rangers wrote an open letter to fans saying their eye wasn’t on the now, but instead towards the future. The term “retool” wasn’t as commonplace back then even if that is essentially what New York was committing to. No, there wouldn’t be years of tanking and losing. “Just don’t expect a cup this year or next year” was the general message.
When the Rangers broke through with making the Eastern Conference final in 2022 it seemed they lived up to their goal. Granted that success was more due to the emergence of Igor Shesterkin and the acquisition of big name free agents like Artemi Panarin. Still fans were thrilled and they followed up with another conference finals appearance two years later.
Then came the “other” letter. The letter has never been publicly revealed but by now we have all heard of the infamous memo where general manager Chris Drury basically put his entire team up for sale. Beloved homegrown Ranger Chris Kreider was the most cited example of a player offered up for bidding, as well as the discouragement and anger from players, fans, and everyone in Rangers town that followed.
The entire situation came to a head when former Ranger Calvin de Haan openly discussed his frustration in a way uncharacteristic for NHL players. Usually diplomatic and not ones to make headlines with their discontent, de Haan raised everyone’s eyebrows when he candidly, for lack of a better word, discussed his feelings towards the end of the regular season. He expressed more anger in that infamous interview byte than the infamous Elias Peterson and J.T. Miller fued with the Vancouver Canucks. More on that last guy in a minute.
The Rangers' failures in between those two letters can be pointed to two things. New York has never had a problem attracting free agent talent, but developing draft talent is a different story. Alexis Lafreniere is a solid top six player playing on New York’s top line after being drafted first overall in 2020. Meanwhile, fellow top ten picks Vitali Krarsov and Kaapo Kakko (you might have heard about how well he “played against men” as a 17-year-old) never panned out on the bright lights of Broadway and were shipped off in trades for pennies on the dollar. One of the few Rangers development success stories from the era was Fillip Chytil and he was shipped off to Vancouver to re-acquire J.T. Miller.
The second is the infamous Tom Wilson incident. Remember when Wilson fought Artemi Panarin and incited a scrum in a late game during the 2020-21 season? Remember when then general manager John Davidson put out that infamous letter (what is it with the Rangers and letters), upset that Wilson didn’t receive more of a punishment from the league? That sealed Davidson’s fate as he was let go at the end of the season, but also ushered in Chris Drury who had an entirely different philosophy.
The Rangers are still an incredibly talented team. A playoff spot should not be out of the question in the slightest. If you told a Rangers fan this is how the last few seasons ago when they were riding high after those conference finals appearances they probably wouldn’t believe that things would have changed for the worse. Maybe Chris Drury should write them an apology letter.