After firing 3rd coach in 4 years, Rangers GM Chris Drury stands alone — and is running out of cards to play

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The news hit on Saturday afternoon, and it began with a familiar turn of phrase from the New York Rangers.

“I would like to thank (coach’s name),” began the statement from general manager Chris Drury, this time about Peter Laviolette being fired after two seasons on the job. Those two seasons included a Presidents’ Trophy, a postseason that ended two wins shy of a Stanley Cup Final and then this season, when the whole thing crashed and burned.

Drury has issued two previous statements like that one — the first a week into his job as GM when he fired David Quinn, the second two springs later when he fired Gerard Gallant. There have also been a multitude of staff firings — those don’t get public statements — as well as trades and waiver placements and the like. Jacob Trouba was being rueful and a bit snarky when he chirped to reporters after being traded to the Anaheim Ducks in December, “It’s a rite of passage to be fired by the Rangers.”

But he ain’t wrong.

The Madison Square Garden culture under Drury has turned into one of success, alternating with everyone waiting for a shoe to drop. Drury is a shrewd operator and saw that his Presidents’ Trophy team of 2023-24 might not have the juice heading into this season, so he took action. He pushed Barclay Goodrow out onto waivers and tried to get Trouba out the door in June, but he didn’t succeed. Drury was correct, in hindsight, to identify the problem. The way he tried to fix it left a lot to be desired.

There is blame to go around the organization, including through the coach’s office, for what happened after that. The Rangers started 12-4-1, but Drury pushed further on Nov. 24, texting the league’s other GMs that his players — Trouba and Chris Kreider, in particular — were available. No one in the locker room or behind the bench reacted well to that, and the 4-15-0 skid that ensued featured some of the most uninspired, aimless hockey Rangers fans have seen since the pre-lockout days.

When the Rangers couldn’t fully pick themselves out of that crevasse, Laviolette’s fate was sealed.

But it’s important to remember how and why all this chaos began. Drury has been a tinkerer since he got the job. That style benefited the teams in 2021-22 and 2023-24, when the Rangers had cap space and assets to fill the roster holes at each trade deadline. The 2022 deadline was a master class, adding Frank Vatrano, Andrew Copp, Tyler Motte and even Justin Braun to a group riding a season-long high. They had the defending champion Lightning down 2-0 in the series and 2-0 in Game 3 of the East final, and who knows what would have happened had the Rangers finished that series off.

But Gallant quickly went from the wise, hands-off coach to distant and inconsequential in 12 months, aided by Drury’s over-tinkering at the 2022-23 deadline. Vladimir Tarasenko was a decent add; Patrick Kane was overkill, and the Rangers looked lost in blowing a 2-0 series lead to the plucky Devils. Gallant and Drury had a blow-up after Game 4 that essentially sealed Gallant’s fate.

In came Laviolette. Good times were had. Team-building exercises were a joy. Trouba led the room the right way. An 18-4-1 start cemented the Rangers as a force; small additions were a big help, with Alex Wennberg and Jack Roslovic bolstering a solid lineup. Once again, the Rangers got the lead in an East final, only to miss out.

And not even 10 months later, Laviolette is out too. Did these guys all forget how to coach in a year?

It’s an obvious point, but Drury better get this one right. Owner James Dolan can’t be happy with Drury’s revolving door of players and coaches, and the revelations on Thursday about the Garden and Artemi Panarin settling a sexual assault claim last summer are a stain on Drury’s tenure, too. When you run guys like Trouba and Goodrow out in harsh ways but say or do nothing about Panarin in light of his incident and subsequent settlement, that’s not only going to be noticed by fans but also by people around the league.

So Drury stands alone now. One of the smallest front offices in the league. No advisers. An established shelf life on coaches that’s slightly longer than your average carton of milk. Unhappy players, even if some of them aren’t what they once were on the ice.

And in the face of that, Drury has to turn this team back into a contender, and fast. Which might mean pushing Kreider out the door. Maybe Mika Zibanejad, too, if that’s possible to do to a player with five years left on his contract plus a full no-move clause. If Drury fails to significantly upgrade his roster ahead of next season and the team is stuck in neutral once more, giving up more high-danger chances than 99 percent of the league, the ghost of Toe Blake behind the bench is going to get this team going.

Which could make this coaching search a bit more difficult than the previous two. Candidates with options might view the mess in New York as fixable, but only with the proper amount of time to fix it. Drury’s quick trigger finger and Dolan’s impatience might not entice a coach who would only be here a year before his own boss gets the boot. That also seems to indicate that a first-time coach has very little shot of succeeding in this environment.

It just feels like chaos and desperation all the time with the Rangers now. When Quinn was fired, the word was he was too harsh on the many young players, so Gallant came in to be softer on them. Then the word was Gallant was too soft, too permissive with a now-veteran team that needed stronger guidance. In came Laviolette, who balanced an off-ice bonding side with a tough, high-tempo on-ice side. And then he wasn’t communicating well enough, couldn’t motivate the team well enough.

This can’t be the way to run a team, where coaches and players and even staffers are fearful of what’s coming next. The Garden has been known to operate that way over Dolan’s 25 years at the helm, so maybe this shouldn’t all be dropped at Drury’s feet, but he took the job after Dolan fired John Davidson and Jeff Gorton, knowing well what was expected. It’s Drury’s team, Drury’s mess and he’s running out of scapegoats to blame for its problems.

Drury and the Rangers are starting over yet again, looking for a coach to revive them. They’re looking for change in the locker room, for more leadership, for more skill, for more commitment to defense.

They better find it. Or else the next letter won’t be sent by Drury. It will be about him, and it will thank him for his time.

(Photo: Bruce Bennett / Getty Images)

This news was originally published on this post .

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