Who's to Blame

Last season, the New York Rangers set franchise records with 55 wins and 114 points, won the President's Trophy and made the Eastern Conference Final.  With most of that team returning this season, expectations were understandably high.  And they got off to a great start.  They were 11-4-1 in their first 16 games.  Then they lost a game in Calgary in mid-November and everything came crashing down.  The end result?  Missing the playoffs.

This season was a colossal disappointment on multiple levels.  There are plenty of reasons why, and there's plenty of blame to go around.  From the players to the coaching staff to the front office, everyone is responsible for this dumpster fire.  Some more than others.

Peter Laviolette sure seems like somebody who knows he's about to get fired.  Earlier this week, after one of the Rangers' many uninspired losses, he was asked what he would say to the team after that type of performance.  His response was that he doesn't go into the locker room after the game.  That tells me two things: 1. He's completely checked out, and 2. He's completely lost the locker room.  When that happens, a coach is as good as gone.

After Laviolette did seemingly everything right last season, seemingly every move he's made this season has gone wrong.  There were plenty of questionable lineup decisions.  Healthy scratches that didn't make sense, guys in and out of the lineup, changing lines every game (it's hard for players to develop chemistry with each other when they're playing with different linemates every game!), in-game adjustments that only made things worse.  And some baffling decisions regarding playing time.

Then there are the things that were problems all season, yet were never fixed!  The defensive lapses that led to easy goals in seemingly every game.  The power play, which went from one of the best in the league last season to one of the worst this season (with the same guys!).  The late-game collapses that cost them points.  And just think of how much worse it would've been if not for the exceptional goaltending of Igor Shesterkin and Jonathan Quick!

So, yes, Laviolette deserves plenty of blame for what happened this season.  As I said, he lost the locker room somewhere along the way, and he clearly never got it back.  Beyond that, though, whenever a team underperforms, especially to this degree, the head coach is the scapegoat, whether it's his fault or not.  Laviolette knows that.  Which is why I fully expect him to be the latest in a long line of Rangers coaches who only lasted two seasons.

I'm not letting the players off the hook, though.  If you want to talk about being checked out, there have been plenty of games this season where the players have looked just that.  Too many uninspired performances, too much lack of effort.  Too many bad periods that ended up costing them.  Too many losses to bad teams.  Too many points left on the table.  Too many games where they just mailed it in or got behind and simply gave up.  They have the talent.  That was never a question.  Which is what makes the whole thing so frustrating!

Where was the chemistry?  Where was the leadership?  Something wasn't clicking in the locker room.  You can't expect everyone to have a career year every season, and you obviously can't do anything about injuries.  Effort, though.  That's something you can control.  And there were too many games where the effort either wasn't there or wasn't enough.  That's on the players.

While Peter Laviolette and the players both bear their share of responsibility, they aren't the most to blame for what happened to the Rangers this season.  One person and one person only is.  General Manager Chris Drury.  When Laviolette is shown the door, I hope Drury is told to go with him.  Because his fingerprints are all over the Rangers' failures this season.  And we maybe should've seen it coming.  Because it started over the summer.

At the end of last season, Drury wanted to move Barclay Goodrow.  Goodrow had a no-trade clause and didn't want to leave, but Drury finagled it so that he'd be able to trade Goodrow to the Sharks, putting him on waivers before completing the trade (thus nullifying his no-trade clause).  It caught Goodrow completely off guard.  Then, during the season, he did the same thing to team captain Jacob Trouba.  He tried to trade Trouba to Columbus, but Trouba blocked it.  So Drury threatened to do the same thing to Trouba that he had done to Goodrow.  Trouba relented and allowed a trade to Anaheim, but he admitted after the trade that it was hard for him to act like a captain amidst the constant trade talk.

Drury's shenanigans with Goodrow and Trouba didn't sit well with those still in the locker room.  Nor did his declaration in November that the Rangers were "open for business" and publicly dangling pretty much everyone on the roster not named Igor Shesterkin.  He specifically mentioned career Ranger Chris Krieder, who's been a franchise cornerstone and fan favorite for more than a decade.  The players don't trust him.  And, frankly, why should they?

And, as it turns out, Trouba wouldn't be the only one.  Kappo Kaako was traded to Seattle.  Ryan Lindgren and Jimmy Vesey were sent to Colorado.  Reilly Smith, who he got from Pittsburgh during the offseason to play on the Kreider-Zibanejad line, was a healthy scratch in several games (for "roster management" purposes) before getting shipped to Vegas.  Kaako was flipped for defenseman Will Borgen, who's been good as Ke'Andre Miller's partner on the No. 2 pair and actually signed an extension with the Rangers.  And Urho Vaakanianen, who they got for Trouba, has also been a regular in the lineup.  The players he got from the Avalanche don't even play, though!  That trade was solely to get rid of Lindgren and Vesey.  And for what?

One trade that Drury's made this season has worked out.  J.T. Miller wanted out of Vancouver and wanted to go back to the Rangers.  Drury had to give up somebody worthwhile to get him, so he sent Filip Chytil and rookie defenseman Victor Mancini to the Canucks.  Miller seamlessly fit right back into the lineup and actually provided a bit of a jolt after the trade.  That obviously didn't last, but he'll still be around next season and will figure to be a key piece moving forward.

Some of these moves were ostensibly for salary cap-related reasons.  It's true that the Rangers were flirting dangerously near the cap, but the cap is also set to go up next season, so it's clearly more than that.  It was also evidently to make room for some of the young players in the system.  Guys like Brett Berard and Brennan Othmann.  And Gabe Perreault, who signed his rookie contract and made his NHL debut just days after Boston College lost in the NCAA Tournament.  But, if that was the case, why were those young guys constantly moving in and out of the lineup?

There's also this.  Drury became GM prior to the 2021-22 season.  He's about to hire his third head coach in four years.  (I'm still not entirely sure why Gerard Gallant was fired after two 100-point seasons.)  At what point do you realize maybe the coaching isn't the problem?  Especially when the players don't trust the front office?  If you don't have the players' buy-in, you're not gonna win regardless of who the coach is.

Of course, Rangers fans looking for a silver lining can point to the franchise's history.  They won the President's Trophy in 1991-92, then missed the playoffs in 1992-93.  And, in 1993-94, after a coaching change, they won the Stanley Cup.  With the talent on the roster, not much is needed for the Rangers to turn things around next season.  So, would it surprise anybody if history repeats itself in 2025-26?