When the final buzzer sounded Saturday in Sunrise, Florida, bringing an end to the Rangers’ 2023-24 season, all the emotion from management evaporated, as did any affection for the team’s core players.
General manager Chris Drury is a guarded man who keeps his words to himself when speaking to reporters, so what he said on a Friday conference call with reporters who have covered the team all season was noteworthy.
When I asked the GM whether he thought the core of players who’ve been there for essentially four or five seasons now had enough playoff caliber to take the Rangers to the next level, his answer was anything but sugar-coated.
“I believe in every single one of my players. We have a lot of good players here. A lot of guys have had great seasons,” Drury said. “Some of them have been with the Rangers for a long time.”
“Now part of the job is to figure out if this group can come together and get to where we want to be.”
Still, perhaps it’s a reflection of how deeply ingrained the core is in the team’s identity. And while that of course pertains to veteran number-bearers Chris Kreider and Mika Zibaginted, the first question Drury got after providing that answer was who the Rangers would consider to play right wing alongside No. 20 and No. 93.
Three days after getting knocked out by the Panthers, it became clear why multiple players and head coach Peter Laviolette had called the season a failure: by Game 6, it was a standing TKO.
I understand that the players acknowledged that they had not achieved their goal. However, you If you’re going to write off this season as a failure, you should honestly take up a new hobby. The Rangers finished the season with the most wins and points, and the third-highest points percentage in franchise history. They won more games than any team in the NHL. They won the Presidents Trophy.
People pay tens of thousands of dollars for regular season tickets. They are glued to every move and every play for six months of the season. Are we saying the entire 2023-24 season was a failure?
The Devils were a failure. The Penguins were a failure. The Sabres were a failure. The Flames were a failure. The Wild were a failure. The Rangers played beautifully and had the best record in the league, and you say that’s a failure? That’s laughable.
It’s not a culture thing. You think the culture thing is the problem? What are you talking about? Have you seen their games this year? They’re not big enough. Do you really think Zibagintid doesn’t care enough? He’s played 12 games in the last two rounds, facing off against Jordan Staal and Aleksander Barkov, two of the most physical centers in the NHL, and occasionally getting Sam Bennett instead. It’s not a matter of wanting to.
They’re not mean enough. They’re not physical enough. They’re not good enough to win 16 games in the playoffs. They didn’t score against Florida the same way they didn’t score against Tampa Bay two years ago.
When you rehash the Florida series, the criticism inevitably piles on. They didn’t get it done. You and the Rangers can talk about the one-run loss, but both Rangers wins came in overtime. They could have been outplayed. They never really played after taking a 3-0 lead against Carolina. They were 3-6 in their last nine games. After the series with Washington, they won two games in regulation.
Again. Zibanejed has a no-trade clause. Kreider is on the 15-team no-trade list that goes into effect July 1. Zibanejed is the Rangers’ best center since Mark Messier I. Not only has Kreider developed into one of the NHL’s best goal scorers, net presences and penalty killers, he’s on track to become the Rangers’ all-time leading goal scorer if he completes the remaining three years of his contract in New York.
No two players represent that core better than Kreider and Zibanejad. The question is whether Drury and the brass can strengthen it by adding physical pieces around it. They probably can.
But there’s already an obstacle here: If the Rangers go into camp with Zibanejad, Vincent Trocheck and Filip Chytil as their top three centers, where are the physical matchup lines, where is the big, intimidating third-line center? Not without reason, this is a team that paid the most intimidating matchup player in existence, Bobby Holik, $45 million as a free agent and then had him play as No. 16 on the first line.
It’s the same old thing, trying to build a three score line. Over and over again. But maybe not.
“We’re looking at a lot of different things and there are a lot of different ways to get to where we want to be,” Drury said. “To me, nothing is really impossible.”
Maybe I’m wrong, and it’s happened before, like when I predicted the Blueshirts would win the Cup, but I don’t think the team’s priority at this point is finding a right winger to play alongside Krager and Zibanejad.
