How the Rangers face-planted to their worst NHL season in years: 'We suck'

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The inference was clear: Less sulking, more no-nonsense play. “We want to be a fast, in-your-face, eff-you type of team,” J.T. Miller said during his first interview after being named team captain. “What are (other teams) going to say about the Rangers in their room? What do we want them to think about us? ‘They’re a team that’s not going to give you an easy night.'” As it turned out, there were many easy nights against these Rangers. They were frustrated by early results that didn’t match the underlying numbers, then utterly collapsed in the middle of the season. It was spurred by injuries to key players, most notably Miller, Adam Fox and Igor Shesterkin, but a dearth of high-end talent and overall depth proved most damning. The roster has crumbled under the direction of team president and general manager Chris Drury, who spent his first three seasons mortgaging the future for shortsighted moves — many of which turned out badly — then the next two dismantling a good-but-not-great core without developing or acquiring adequate replacements. The result was a second straight season without the playoffs, which mercifully came to a close with Wednesday’s 4-2 road win over the Tampa Bay Lightning. A loss would have secured the third-best odds for the No. 1 pick in the upcoming NHL Draft, but now New York will await the outcome of Thursday’s Flames-Kings game. A Flames loss would clinch the third-best odds for the Rangers, who would then be guaranteed a spot in the top five, while a Calgary win would give New York the fourth-best odds and ensure a top-six pick. Regardless of where the lottery balls land, the need for young, impact players has become painfully clear. This season may have featured less B.S. in terms of the off-ice drama that consumed 2024-25, but the on-ice product was even worse. The Rangers finished with the worst record in the Eastern Conference (34-39-9) and their lowest full-season points total (77) since 2017-18. It marked only the seventh time in franchise history they’ve earned 77 points or fewer while playing an 82-game schedule and tied the 1928-29 Rangers for most times being shut out (10) in any season. It all raises serious questions about the deteriorating state of a team that’s approaching the 32nd anniversary of its last Stanley Cup and feels eons away from ending that championship drought. Drury fired three coaches in less than five years at the helm before finally landing his man. He’d long coveted two-time Stanley Cup winner Mike Sullivan, who was entrenched with the Pittsburgh Penguins for 10 seasons. When the two sides parted ways on April 28, it took only four days for Drury to seal the deal and hire Sullivan as the Rangers’ 38th head coach on May 2. “The second Mike was available, we quickly and aggressively pursued him,” Drury said later, in a rare public appearance at Sullivan’s introductory press conference. We’re certainly thrilled that pursuit led us to this moment.” The Rangers had undergone a painful purge the season before Sullivan was hired, when lineup staples such as Kaapo Kakko, Filip Chytil, Ryan Lindgren and captain Jacob Trouba were shown the door via trade. It continued during the summer, with K’Andre Miller and the team’s longest-tenured player, Chris Kreider, joining the exile. Drury reallocated some of his freed-up salary cap space to signing defenseman Vladislav Gavrikov, but otherwise banked on the Sullivan bump turning things around. He also gambled on J.T. Miller rising to the occasion as the new face of the franchise. Despite a messy divorce in his previous stop with the Vancouver Canucks, the 32-year-old forward (now 33) was named New York’s 29th captain on Sept. 16. With that, Drury thrust a volatile personality who’s been open about his struggles managing emotions into a pressurized leadership position. “I just don’t want to overthink it,” Miller said on the first day of camp. “I want to be me. I’ve been given a lot of good advice from (Sullivan) and (Drury) in the last little bit here about, you know, ‘We want you to be yourself.’ And for me, that means a lot.” There were early signs of improved structure and defense under Sullivan, but it didn’t yield the desired results. The Rangers won only three of their first 10 games, and most embarrassingly, became the first team in league history to be shut out in each of their first three home games. The drought spanned a total of 180:57, surpassing the 2001-02 Florida Panthers (155:17) for the longest season-opening scoreless streak at home among existing NHL franchises. ‘I don’t know whether to laugh or cry, honestly,” forward Mika Zibanejad said following a 2-0 loss to the Oilers on Oct. 14. All the while, Sullivan and his players insisted — at times defiantly so — that they were playing better than their record indicated. “It’s a unique situation, but let’s not blow this out of proportion,” Miller said after that Edmonton game. “There’s a lot of good. We’re getting a lot of chances.” The analytics backed that up, with New York registering a 57.5 percent expected goals-for rate that ranked second only to the league-leading Avalanche through 15 games, according to Evolving Hockey. But its average of 2.33 goals per contest in that span sat dead last, highlighting a severe deficiency in offensive firepower. The Rangers tried to convince themselves it wasn’t a problem, but the doubts festered. The crisis of confidence was particularly heavy at Madison Square Garden, where they would lose each of their first seven games, then go an 18-game stretch from Nov. 24 until Mar. 5 without a regulation win. They finished with a 14-20-7 record on home ice. “It’s hard to climb out of that,” Miller said. New York was already struggling to win at MSG and generate goals anywhere when a series of devastating injuries struck. Miller missed 14 games due to multiple ailments, but even when he played, he often looked compromised, ineffective or some combination of the two. Vincent Trocheck was sidelined for a month by an early upper-body injury, which was promptly followed by Fox missing a similar amount of time as a result of a left-shoulder injury. But the biggest blow to the Rangers’ chances came on Jan. 5, when Shesterkin and a recently returned Fox both went down with lower-body injuries in the same game. Neither of the team’s two most important players returned until after the February Olympic break, at which point the season was well out of reach. “Missing those games and not being able to help the team in any way, and you see how the season’s going, it gets frustrating,” Fox said. “That’s where it’s really disappointing for me.” Hours before Fox and Shesterkin got hurt, Rangers owner James Dolan appeared on WFAN Radio for his first independent media interview in three years. In it, he affirmed his commitment to Drury — “Chris Drury is a winner and competitor,” Dolan said — and urged fans to keep the faith. “Don’t give up on my team this year,” he said. Management was sending similar messages. Drury was actively seeking outside help, including efforts to pry forward Kiefer Sherwood and star defenseman Quinn Hughes from the sinking Vancouver Canucks, and viewing January as a prove-it month for his club. The Rangers responded by face-planting. The 2024-25 squad memorably tanked its season with a 4-15 skid from late-November through December, but the 2025-26 team sank even lower. New York won only three times in 19 games (3-13-3) from Christmas through late-February, with several embarrassing losses along the way. The Rangers were routed 10-2 by the Boston Bruins on Jan. 10, marking the most goals they’ve allowed since Feb. 6, 2009, and may have played even worse while falling behind 6-0 and eventually losing 8-4 to the Ottawa Senators on Jan. 14. That turned out to be the final straw, with Drury abandoning plans to add and announcing his intention to sell in a Jan. 16 letter to season-ticket holders. It was a flashback to New York’s original rebuild letter, which was penned in 2018 by former team president Glen Sather and general manager Jeff Gorton — except Drury’s version stressed a quicker turnaround and was met with added skepticism from a frustrated fan base. “This will not be a rebuild,” he wrote. “This will be a retool built around our core players and prospects. We will target players that bring tenacity, skill, speed, and a winning pedigree with a focus on obtaining young players, draft picks, and cap space to allow us flexibility moving forward. That may mean saying goodbye to players that have brought us and our fans great moments over the years.” That put star winger Artemi Panarin directly in the crosshairs. The Rangers never seemed all that serious about re-signing their leading scorer, who was in the final season of a seven-year, $81.5 million contract, and made trading the 34-year-old their primary objective. The shellshocked team soon hit the road for California, losing all three games. After the final one — a 3-1 defeat in San Jose — Panarin passed reporters in the hallway near the visiting dressing room at SAP Center and audibly remarked, “We suck.” Behind the scenes, Panarin’s agent, Paul Theofanous, was seizing control. By exercising the full power of a no-movement clause, Panarin was free to handpick his next destination — which, in turn, drastically limited the Rangers’ potential return. Theofanous played several teams against each other in negotiations, but Panarin ultimately provided New York with only one trade option: the Kings. Rather than drag it out in an effort to squeeze more out of L.A., Drury chose not to risk the deal falling through and accepted a modest package of prospect Liam Greentree and a conditional third-round pick on Feb. 4. The trade rocked the locker room and signified the end of an era that saw Panarin lead the Rangers to two Eastern Conference Finals and one Presidents’ Trophy but leave a complicated legacy behind. “I’ve had a lot of friends get traded over the years,” Trocheck said. “This one is no easier.” As he was making those comments, Trocheck knew he could be next. The 32-year-old center, who represented the Rangers’ most appealing movable asset thanks to his merely partial, 12-team no-trade list, seemed resigned to his fate. “If I get traded, I’m fine,” he said on March 2. “I’m not worried about myself. I’m more worried about my family.” Trocheck spent the weeks leading up to the March 6 trade deadline bracing his wife and two children for the possibility, only to find out at the buzzer that he was staying. Drury was seeking an NHL-ready forward with top-six potential as the centerpiece of any trade, according to multiple league sources, but no one met that price. Deadline week came and went with only minor moves, including a trade that sent fourth-line center Sam Carrick to the Buffalo Sabres for a couple of draft picks and another that gave former first-round pick Brennan Othmann a fresh start with the Flames. The remaining core players were left to wonder whether their prime years could be wasted on a sinking ship. Fox was at the top of that list, and fueled curiosity about his stance with a noncommittal answer in late February, after he had already been snubbed for a U.S. Olympic team that featured Sullivan as head coach and Drury as assistant GM. “I think for me it’s just (seeing) how everything unfolds,” the Jericho, N.Y., native clarified to The Athletic a few days later. “When you have a lot of time to process and digest everything, I think that’s when you kind of evaluate the landscape.” Fox wants to see which direction Drury takes the roster, but he’s among the veterans who seem encouraged by a late infusion of youth in an otherwise lost season. “There’s a lot of good things — and I think a lot of things that you could be looking forward to and be optimistic about,” said Zibanejad, who was named team MVP on Wednesday and stands as one of the Rangers’ few bright spots after bouncing back with a team-high 78 points (34 goals and 44 assists). “Obviously, we have some work to do, but you have to try to somehow get something positive out of it, because it would have been miserable the last few weeks if we couldn’t find something,” he added. “I know it’s not good enough and it doesn’t get us to the playoffs, but you always have a choice of how you look at things. There’s definitely some positives to take out of it.” New York has used 10 rookies in total, its highest number since 2020-21, with several positioning themselves for possible depth roles next season thanks to the jolt they have provided down the stretch. However, the only notable skill player among those prospects is Gabe Perreault. The 20-year-old winger looks like a top-six piece moving forward, but the need for more play drivers at the top of the lineup remains glaring. The prudent path would be restocking a depleted prospect pool through the draft and trades that are aimed toward the future. A commitment to improving an organizational process that’s failed to develop several high picks over the years also seems necessary. But Drury’s emphasis on retooling suggests he won’t have the patience for that approach. He’ll be armed with nearly $30 million in cap space — and much more if he trades Trocheck, which remains a strong likelihood — with very few of his own free agents to worry about. The problem is, what was once viewed as a franchise-altering UFA class has turned into a dud, with Connor McDavid, Jack Eichel and others re-signing with their current clubs. So Drury will likely need to get creative to have any hope of reopening the Rangers’ contention window. His shaky track record raises questions about his ability to navigate those challenges, but don’t expect his status to change in the coming months. It’s hard to imagine that Dolan’s confidence hasn’t been somewhat shaken by back-to-back ugly seasons, but all indications are that he’s going to give Drury another chance to clean up his own mess. Operating with desperation could dig the Rangers into an even deeper hole, but Drury is likely to try and build around Fox, Gavrikov, Miller, Shesterkin and Zibanejad — each of whom holds a full no-movement clause — as well as Perreault and some of the emerging youngsters. Trocheck, Braden Schneider and even Alexis Lafrenière, who disappointed for most of the season but finished with a flurry, could find themselves traded in the name of the retool, with New York expected to add aggressively. The Rangers aren’t one piece away — or even two — and don’t have many desirable assets to offer. But they are armed with 11 picks in the 2026 draft, including two first-rounders. What they do with them will be a focal point of another long summer, following another season of too much B.S. — Peter Baugh contributed to this report.  Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms Vincent Z. Mercogliano is a Senior Writer for The Athletic covering the New York Rangers. He previously covered the team for The Journal News/lohud.com and the USA TODAY Network. The Hofstra University graduate is also the on-air Rangers analyst for SNY TV.