About three and a half weeks ago, I wrote a piece titled: "Is It Possible That Maybe the Rangers Just Aren't That Good?" The Rangers had just lost to the Calgary Flames 5-1 to drop their record to a woeful 3-5-2. They couldn't score at home and their top six looked more like a bottom six. "It's time to admit a painful truth," I wrote, "this team may not be as talented as I and others like me thought they were."
Well with less than a week to go before Thanksgiving, it's time to remove the word "maybe" from that title. The sad truth is that the Rangers simply aren't that good. It's not that they haven't had some good moments. They had a 2-0 win against the Canucks in Vancouver and a 3-2 OT win against the Kraken in Seattle; the latter quite possibly the most complete game they've played in over a year. And scoring six goals on only 18 shots against the Nashville Predators at the Garden constitutes front-page headlines these days.
But apart from those games, and maybe a couple more, 2025-26 is looking remarkably similar to 2024-25, when the Rangers missed the playoffs by just six points. In fact, New York is on track to finish this season with 82 points, three less than they had all of last season.
It's unsettling to discover that this franchise went through a four-year rebuild just so it can have a three-year window, but that appears to be the case. This core looks old and slow. Apart from Adam Fox and Will Cuylle, every player who was counted on to produce for this team is seriously underperforming. Below are the adjusted point totals for each player over an 82-game schedule.
I'll cut Vincent Trocheck some slack because he missed a month on LTIR, but there's no excuse for players like Artemi Panarin, Mika Zibanejad, JT Miller and Alexis Lafreniere. In 2023-24, the Bread man had 31 multiple point games on his way to a 120 point season. This season, he's had only four such games.
The problem with Panarin is that if he's not scoring, he's pretty much useless. He doesn't kill penalties and he's the last player you want on the ice if you're protecting a lead. Thursday night in Colorado, two of his turnovers led directly to Avalanche goals: one by Nathan MacKinnon, the other by Cale Makar. Both times the Rangers were ahead by a goal. With him slated to become a UFA at the end of the season, it's highly unlikely that Chris Drury will re-sign him.
Miller and Zibanejad were supposed to be this dynamic duo that would give the Rangers a legit number one line. So far, they've looked more like third liners. Indeed, at times, Noah Laba's line has looked more impressive than Miller and Zibanejad's. As for Lafreniere, he's looking more and more like a bust with each passing game. When Dave Maloney starts calling you out, you know you're bad.
The special teams that were supposed to be the hallmark of this team have been anything but. Thursday night was only the second time this season that the Rangers scored more than one power play goal in a game. They scored twice with the man advantage against the Penguins in Pittsburgh on October 11.
Igor Shesterkin, the rock upon which this franchise was built, look's nothing like the former Vezina trophy winner Drury rewarded with an eight-year, $92 million contract extension a year ago. Indeed, his backup, Jonathan Quick, is having a better season than he is, and for a tenth of the price.
And to think Mike Sullivan left Pittsburgh for this. I don't know promises Drury made to him, but given that the Penguins are currently ahead of the Rangers in the standings, I hope it was worth it. Let's face it, Scotty Bowman wouldn't be able to turn this middling team into a contender. James Dolan may not want to admit it, but the guy he entrusted to run this ship has run it straight into the ground.
I have been a Drury defender from day one; I'm done defending the man. He is currently the GM of a franchise that is in danger of missing the playoffs back-to-back seasons for the first time since Jeff Gorton had that title. And with no tangible plan to fix what's wrong, the prospects for the next several seasons are bleak, to say the least.
And the worst part about what's going on is that while the Rangers spin their wheels, across the Hudson, the Devils are the only team in the New York metro area with a shot at going deep in the playoffs; to the east, the Islanders are very quietly having their best season since 2020-21, when they were one win away from advancing to their first Stanley Cup final since 1984. The Blueshirts are dangerously close to reliving the nightmare of the '80s when they were outplayed and outclassed by their suburban rivals.
It's no longer too early in the season. Twenty-two games is enough of a sample size. The alarm bells are going off. The ship is listing badly and the outlook is dire.
All that's left is for the band to play "Nearer My God to Thee."
No comments:
Post a Comment