RALEIGH, N.C. – How did the 2024-25 season go so terribly wrong for the New York Rangers?
Well, how much time do you have?
The fatal blow came Saturday, with a lifeless 7-3 loss to the Carolina Hurricanes at Lenovo Center officially eliminating the bumbling Blueshirts from playoff contention.
It served as the final insult to an exasperated fan base, but the origins of this lost season can be traced back much further than any recent results. A damning list of missteps over several months − years, even − culminated with this bitter moment.
This outcome would have seemed improbable at this time last year, when the Rangers were marching toward the franchise’s fourth Presidents’ Trophy and their second Eastern Conference final appearance in three seasons. Now they’ve become the fourth team in NHL history to miss the postseason the year after achieving the league’s best record, joining the 1992-93 Blueshirts in that unremarkable club.
Those Rangers rallied the very next season to capture a Stanley Cup that stands as their only championship in 85 years and counting. Perhaps that will inspire hope for a similar response, but it would require some serious optimism given the tattered state of the organization.
How we got here
On the surface, the overall body of work in team president Chris Drury’s four seasons at the helm is strong.
Three playoff appearances, two trips to the conference finals, one Presidents’ Trophy and a 191-105-30 record have made this a mostly successful era in the franchise’s underwhelming history. But it should be noted that those teams were largely built by his predecessor, Jeff Gorton, who put the core pieces of Adam Fox, Artemi Panarin, Mika Zibanejad and several others in place before being suddenly – and surprisingly – dismissed in 2021.
Drury’s mission statement from the beginning was to fortify the skill Gorton assembled with gritty role players who would make the Rangers “harder to play against.” There have been several swings and misses in that regard, which at least partially explains why they’ve hit the wall with such a loud thud.
The former Blueshirts’ captain hired two old-school, experienced (and recycled) coaches – first Gerard Gallant, then Peter Laviolette – who were charged with molding the talented roster into the type of north-south, tight-checking, never-back-down outfit that could excel in the playoffs. But the proper pieces were never put in place to implement that assertive play style.
Instead, they won behind a two-part formula: Goaltending and special teams. Igor Shesterkin developed into one of the best goalies in the world, including a brilliant Vezina Trophy-winning campaign in 2021-22, and New York’s high-end playmakers combined to form one of the NHL’s most efficient power plays. But the reality of their middling-to-subpar play at five-on-five always lurked under the hood.
Drury recognized those deficiencies and tried to make moves to address them, but very little materialized outside of a few aggressive trade deadlines in which he dealt future assets for band-aid rentals. You can count the additions who made a lasting impact on one hand – and you won’t even need all five fingers.
After being manhandled by the eventual champion Florida Panthers in last year’s conference final, Drury decided to offload a couple team leaders to clear salary cap space for bigger moves. The logic was sound, but the execution was lacking. He failed to bring in any true difference-makers while his underhanded tactics backfired, unleashing a spiral of negativity that would drag into the season.
Waiving Barclay Goodrow to circumvent his no-trade list without any fair warning and trying to force captain Jacob Trouba out through a messy campaign that landed his wife in the public crosshairs did not sit well in the locker room, but the issues run deeper than that.
Drury, in lockstep with owner James Dolan, had steadily escalated a culture of paranoia and secrecy that’s led to sagging morale in all corners of the organization. It hit a new low in the preseason when an internal memo was issued threatening termination if a strict code enforcing over-the-top barriers between team employees and players was not followed − creating a palpable feeling of walking on eggshells in the workplace.
All of this was bubbling behind the scenes as the 2024-25 season began.
The Rangers got off to a promising start at 12-4-1, but tensions remained high and underlying metrics remained concerning.
Then came a November road trip through western Canada, which ended with ugly losses in Calgary and Edmonton. That prompted a different sort of memo – one that went out to all 31 opposing general managers, with Drury announcing his intention to trade off parts of this stagnating core. Trouba and the longest-tenured Ranger, Chris Kreider, were mentioned by name, furthering the rift between the leadership group and management.
It got leaked in short order and sent the Blueshirts into a tailspin that ultimately doomed their season, with New York losing a staggering 15 of 19 games from mid-November through December.
It was a massive miscalculation on Drury’s part, but also a terrible look for an accomplished group of players who responded by curling up into a non-competitive ball.
Shortly thereafter came trades involving Trouba and Kaapo Kakko, with Filip Chytil, Ryan Lindgren, Reilly Smith and Jimmy Vesey joining the purge in the ensuing months. Most of those players had been staples during Drury’s tenure − and even before he took over − with their abrupt exits representing the swiftest round of changes we’ve seen under this GM.
The Rangers still looked shell-shocked heading into the new year, with a low point coming in a 5-0 loss to the rival New Jersey Devils on Dec. 23 in which they mustered only 12 shots on goal.
They would regroup in January and be buoyed by the addition of J.T. Miller in February, which led to a 15-7-3 record in their first 25 games of 2025, tying for the third-highest points total in the league in that span. But their bad habits − specifically defending the rush, avoiding dangerous turnovers and protecting their own net-front − came back with a vengeance in March.
They ultimately went out with a whimper, posting a 6-10-3 record the past 19 games to once again fade out of contention.
Alarming numbers
The race will conclude with the Rangers getting what they deserve.
They’ve been a few notches below the NHL’s legitimate contenders all season, as evidenced by their 11-24-5 record against playoff-bound opponents. And they’ve fallen off a cliff in almost every statistical category, most notably dropping from a franchise-record 55 wins last season to 37 with two games to play.
Each of their top-six scorers from a year ago – Panarin, Vincent Trocheck, Kreider, Fox, Zibanejad and Alexis Lafrenière – will finish well short of their 2023-24 points totals, with an alarming dip in performance from at least half of that group.
The one area where they consistently excelled − the power play − has become an inexplicable source of frustration. A unit that ranked fourth in the NHL the previous five seasons combined has tumbled all the way to 27th, with a recent 18-game stretch that saw them go 3-for-49 while allowing four shorthanded goals.
Meanwhile, the defensive issues that were always plain to see have festered into a team-wide virus.
The Rangers rank 28th in shots against per game and 29th in scoring chances allowed, according to Clear Sight Analytics, while allowing five goals or more an astonishing 23 times this season. Laviolette’s insistence on using a man-to-man system that requires sticky, mobile, heads-up defenders − of which New York has painfully few − has led to repeated breakdowns, lopsided possession time and embarrassing scores.
Add in a forecheck with no teeth, a soft presence in the high-danger areas, an inability to advance pucks with any semblance of consistency and an effort level that often borders between incertitude and disinterested, and you’ve got the makings of a non-playoff team.
What comes next?
There were already questions about whether that core was championship caliber, and now we have a resounding answer in the negative.
That’s why many believe Drury will continue the dismantling this offseason.
As previously reported by lohud.com, part of the USA TODAY Network, prior to the March 7 trade deadline, multiple people with knowledge of the situation have indicated that Kreider will be the next big name to fall on the sword.
That would have been a shocking statement less than 12 months ago, when the franchise’s leading playoff goal-scorer was lifting the Rangers to the NHL’s final four with an historic natural hat trick in the third period of a close-out game against the Hurricanes. But a logjam of young left-wingers, a dramatic drop-off in impact and production − the 33-year-old has only five assists (and one primary!) in 66 games − and an increasingly frigid relationship with management has made a divorce feel inevitable.
Others will be on the chopping block, as well, with few outside of Fox, Miller, Shesterkin and probably Trocheck considered safe. Panarin and Zibanejad both hold full no-movement clauses and therefore control their own fates, but no one would be surprised if the trade possibility is broached with either this summer.
It won’t just be players on the move, either. The expectation is that Laviolette will be the first shoe to drop once the season ends next week, joining Gallant as a two-and-out coach under Drury.
Pittsburgh’s Mike Sullivan is considered the apple of his eye, but where will Drury turn if he can’t pry the two-time Stanley Cup winning coach from the Penguins? A lesser-accomplished retread wouldn’t inspire much confidence.
All indications are that Drury will get a crack at hiring a third bench boss and performing more roster surgery this summer, even though there’s a case to be made that he’s among the primary culprits for this mess. But as highly as Dolan regards his hand-picked GM, it’s also hard to believe the owner hasn’t taken notice of the missteps.
The leash is surely growing shorter, which should increase the urgency to act boldly in the coming weeks and months. Drury’s wish list likely includes at least one needle-mover apiece at forward and on defense, as well as improved depth pretty much everywhere outside of left wing − a position it seems every viable prospect in New York’s thin pipeline has played at one point or another.
There are legitimate doubts about whether he has enough cap space to make a splash in free agency or the assets to land a big fish via trade, as well as questions about what will be available to him in a market that’s short on high-end talents.
It all adds intrigue to the most consequential Rangers’ offseason in recent memory, which was born from one of the most disappointing seasons in franchise history.
Vincent Z. Mercogliano is the New York Rangers beat reporter for the USA TODAY Network. Read more of his work at lohud.com/sports/rangers/ and follow him on X, formerly Twitter, @vzmercogliano.