The news struck on Saturday afternoon, and it started with a familiar turn from the New York Rangers.
“I would like to thank (the name of the coach),” said the Director General Chris Drury, this time about Peter Laviolette after two seasons at work. These two seasons included a trophy of presidents, a playoff series which ended two shy victories of a final of the Stanley Cup, then this season, when everything crashed and burned.
Drury published two previous declarations like this – the first week in his GM work when he dismissed David Quinn, the two seconds of springs later when he dismissed Gerard Gallant. There have also been a multitude of staff layoffs – they do not obtain public declarations – as well as transactions and derogation investments, etc. Jacob Trouba was terrifying and a little sarcastic when he turned to journalists after being exchanged to the Ducks of Anaheim in December: “It is a rite of passage to fire by the Rangers.”
But he is not wrong.
The culture of the garden of Madison Square under Drury turned into success, alternating with everyone waiting for a shoe to fall. DRURY is a clever operator and saw that the trophy team of its presidents of 2023-24 may not have the juice before this season, so he took measures. He pushed Barclay Goodrow on exemptions and tried to leave Treba in June, but he did not succeed. Drury was right, with hindsight, to identify the problem. The way he tried to repair it left a lot to be desired.
It is blamed to go around the organization, including by the coach’s office, for what happened after that. The Rangers started 12-4-1, but Drury pushed further on November 24, sending SMS to the other GMs in the League than his players – Trouba and Chris Kreider, in particular – were available. No one in the locker rooms or behind the bench reacted well to this, and the 4-15-0 skid that followed presented some of the most inspired and useless fans of hockey fans since the pre-blockers.
When the Rangers could not get out of this crevasse completely, Laviolette’s fate was sealed.
But it is important to remember how and why all this chaos started. Drury has been a handyman since he obtained the position. This style benefited the teams in 2021-2022 and 2023-24, when the Rangers had a ceiling space and assets to fill the holes in the list at each deadline. The 2022 deadline was a master class, adding Frank Vatrano, Andrew Copp, Tyler Motte and even Justin Braun to a group leading a top of a season. They had the reigning champion Lightning down 2-0 in the series and 2-0 in match 3 of the Eastern final, and who knows what would have happened if the Rangers had finished this series.
But Gallant quickly went from the wise and manual coach to distant and without consequences in 12 months, helped by Drury on the decline in the deadline 2022-23. Vladimir Tarasenko was a decent addition; Patrick Kane was exaggerated, and the Rangers seemed lost by blowing a 2-0 series at The Plucky Devils. Gallant and Drury had an explosion after match 4 which mainly sealed the fate of Gallant.
Laviolette came. Good times have been spent. Team consolidation exercises were a joy. Trouba led the room in the right direction. A beginning 18-4-1 cemented rangers as a force; The small additions were of great help, Alex Wennberg and Jack Roslovic reinforcing a solid alignment. Again, the Rangers took the lead in an eastern final, only to miss.
And not even 10 months later, Laviolette also came out. Have these guys all forgotten how to train in a year?
This is an obvious point, but Drury would do better to understand this one. The owner James Dolan cannot be satisfied with the drury rotating door of players and coaches, and the revelations of Thursday on the garden and Artemi Panarin installing a complaint of sexual assault last summer are also a task on the mandate of Drury. When you run guys like Trouba and Goodrow in a severe way, but say or do nothing for Panarin in the light of his incident and his subsequent colony, this will not only be noticed by fans but also by people of the League.
DRURY is therefore alone now. One of the smallest before the league. No advisers. A shelf life established on coaches which is slightly longer than your average milk box. Unhappy players, even if some of them are not what they were in the past on the ice.
And faced with this, Drury must transform this team into a competitor and fast. Which could mean pushing Kreider through the door. Perhaps Mika Zibanejad too, if possible to do to a player with five years on her contract plus a complete non-movement clause. If Drury fails to considerably upgrade his list before next season and the team is stuck again in neutral, abandoning more chance of high danger than 99% of the league, the ghost of Toe Blake behind the bench will advance this team.
This could make this search for coaching a little more difficult than the previous two. Candidates with options could consider the mess in New York as repairable, but only with the appropriate time to repair it. Drury’s rapid trigger finger and Dolan’s impatience may not encourage a coach who would only be a year before his own boss obtained the boot. This also seems to indicate that a first coach has very little to succeed in this environment.
It looks like chaos and despair all the time with the Rangers. When Quinn was dismissed, the word was too hard on the many young players, then Gallant came to be softer on them. Then, the word was gallant too soft, too permissive with a team now veteran who needed stronger advice. The Laviolette came, who balanced an out -of -ice link side with a hard and high tempo side. And then he did not communicate well enough, could not motivate the team well enough.
This cannot be the way to manage a team, where coaches and players and even staff are afraid of what will follow. The garden is known to operate this way in the 25th anniversary at the helm at the helm, so maybe all this should not be abandoned at Drury’s feet, but he took the job after Dolan dismissed John Davidson and Jeff Gorton, knowing well what was expected. It’s Drury’s team, Drury’s disorder and scapegoats are lacking to blame for their problems.
Drury and the Rangers start again, looking for a coach to revive them. They are looking for a change in the locker room, for more leadership, for more skills, for more commitment to defense.
They better find it. Or the next letter will not be sent by Drury. It will be on him, and it will thank him for his time.
(Photo: Bruce Bennett / Getty Images)
