Why GM Chris Drury deserves much blame for doomed Rangers season

The blame for, perhaps, the most disappointing season in New York Rangers history spreads throughout the organization. Peter Laviolette was already fired as coach by the Rangers. Several players were traded away during the dismal season. Others could be goners this offseason.

But what about general manager Chris Drury? Sure, Drury publicly accepted his share of blame Saturday, when he told reporters “It starts with me. I need to do a better job and give the staff and players the opportunity to succeed.”

However, it feels like he might be the most at fault here for the shipwreck of a season the Rangers just had. It’s not easy to be 29 points worse from one season to the next. Or to be the fourth team in NHL history to win the Presidents’ Trophy one season and fail to qualify for the Stanley Cup Playoffs the next.

Drury? He not only oversaw this mess. But he caused many of the problems that led to the Rangers demise.

The GM did little to win friends and influence people among the Rangers core. It unsettled the players when he circumvented Barclay Goodrow’s no-trade clause in his contract and waived the respected veteran without giving him much of a heads-up. Goodrow was claimed by the San Jose Sharks, a team on his no-trade list, and was pretty pissed the way things were handled by Drury and the Rangers.

His former teammates were none too happy with the treatment captain Jacob Trouba received in a drawn-out Broadway departure either.

At break-up day Monday, Mika Zibanejad, who has played nine seasons with the Rangers, revealed that the offseason brought uncertainty to the team. What the players saw happen with respected veteran teammates was concerning. So was lack of communication from the top of the food chain.

“I think [there was] frustration. I think it’s just when you don’t know everything, we don’t know what’s going on,” Zibanejad said.

“Us players, we have to take owenership of what we do and how we go about things, but it has to be cohesive with everyone. This organization doesn’t work without the players. The organization for us players doesn’t work without the people that work above us. We have to look at it and we have to talk about it.”

The Rangers memo of doom

Although the Rangers got off to a hot start with a 12-4-1 record heading into their Western Canada road trip, their play was still a cause of concern. While veterans underperformed, Igor Shesterkin and Jonathan Quick masked the brewing on-ice troubles with stellar goaltending. That proved to be an unsustainable strategy behind an atrocious team defense.

After the Rangers lost consecutive games to the Edmonton Oilers and Calgary Flames on the trip, Elliotte Friedman broke the news about Drury’s infamous memo, saying the Rangers were open for business, mentioning Trouba and Kreider as trade options.

To say the memo affected the team is an extreme understatement. To put it bluntly, Drury’s decision backfired badly. Not only were the players wary of his treatment of Trouba and Kreider, but having this made public also worsened the trust they had in the man in charge.

It wasn’t that Drury was wrong to want to remove Goodrow and Trouba, two overpaid older players, off the roster or that trading Kreider wasn’t a sound hockey plan. It was more how Drury bungled everything and had it blow up in his face.

After Drury’s leaked memo, the season spiraled for the Rangers, including a 4-15-0 stretch in November and December that blew up their season. The Rangers rallied some after the New Year, but were finally eliminated from playoff contention with two games remaining in the regular season.

Shortly after the memo, Trouba was traded. But Kreider remained for the rest of the season, looking like a severely diminished and demoralized player. We did find out at break-up day that Kreider also dealt with a back injury, vertigo and a hand injury that likely will require offseason surgery.

That played a part, but Drury’s memo clearly took its toll on Kreider, who slumped to 30 points, a 45-point drop off from 2023-24 when he had 75. The Rangers power play also collapsed from third overall to 28th in the NHL in part because of Kreider’s lack of production.

One of the League’s most dominant players on the man advantage, Kreider scored 18 power-play goals, good for fifth in the NHL, in 2023-24. This season, that number decreased to six.

The memo was a slap in the face for the longest-tenured player on the Rangers, one who is third all-time in franchise history with 326 goals, trailing Blueshirt legends Rod Gilbert and Jean Ratelle.

It’s hard to fathom that it was almost a year ago in Game 6 of the second-round series against the Carolina Hurricanes, when the 33-year-old scored a third-period natural hat trick to send the Rangers to the conference final.

It’s very likely that Kreider played his last game with the Rangers. If indeed this is the end, it was disrespectful, not that Drury wanted to trade him this season, but how he handled the situation.

This offseason could determine Chris Drury’s future with Rangers

There is no doubt that this offseason is crucial for the Rangers direction and Drury’s job security.

The fallout began when Laviolette was fired after two seasons behind the bench, along with associate coach Phil Housley. Laviolette joins Gerard Gallant and David Quinn as the third coach Drury has fired since taking over as general manager in May 2021.

When speaking to reporters last weekend, Drury maneuvered his way about, addressing the team’s culture, a key issue that stemmed from his decisions.

“We’re going to be looking at everything. Whether it’s the specific question you ask or other things that have come up along the way this year that we’ve already begun to look at and looked at during the year,” Drury stated. “Unfortunately, we do have extra time with not being in the playoffs to look at a lot of things this offseason and, again, try and make sure we’re back in the playoffs next year.”

Culture is part of New York’s list of problems. But remember, Drury constructed this failed roster, too. So, there’s another reason why much blames falls on his shoulders this season.

The Rangers made two Eastern Conference Finals with Gallant and Laviolette, so it’s unfair to look back and truly scrutinize Drury for those hires. However, he was reluctant to hire a first-year head coach. In particular, Kris Knoblouch was right in the Rangers backyard as coach of the Hartford Wolf Pack, and went on to lead the Oilers to the Stanley Cup Final last season as their coach.

“Leading into the season, given the success we had the last few years, we had high expectations. Quite simply, we fell short across the board,” Drury told reporters Saturday. “Nobody here takes it lightly. We know our fans are frustrated and they deserve a better season than this. It starts with me. I need to do a better job and give the staff and players the opportunity to succeed.”

In New York, a season like 2024-25 is unacceptable, especially for an owner like James Dolan. It’s funny how the world works sometimes.

After Dolan abruptly fired John Davidson and Jeff Gorton, the president and general manager, respectively, in 2021, both found new positions and left the Big Apple in the rear view.

Gorton is currently the executive vice president of hockey operations for the Montreal Canadiens, who secured the final wild-card berth in the Eastern Conference, edging out, among others, the Rangers. Davidson is the alternate governor for the Columbus Blue Jackets, who finished ahead of the Rangers and missed the playoffs by two points.

If the Rangers aren’t in the playoffs this time next year, it could be Drury waving goodbye to New York in his rearview mirror.