New York Rangers: Letting the past die hard

After 13 amazing seasons, the Henrik Lundqvist window of contention is officially closed for the New York Rangers. The next two or three seasons are going to be a struggle as the team acquires more future assets.

When it comes to mourning loss, there are five stages: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. The New York Rangers as a franchise are currently in the bargaining stage in terms of institutional approach. The team went through denial and anger during the course of this past season. The team denied they needed to rebuild when it allowed Alain Vigneault to run Henrik Lundqvist into the ground in hopes of saving his job.

The players on the ice conveyed the anger in the grieving process. Watching Lundqvist get pulled this past season more than he had ever before in his entire career was extremely demoralizing to a team that expected to be a Stanley Cup contender. The bargaining process is taking time being that the Rangers have to strike actual bargains and not come to personal terms themselves.

However, this still leaves depression and acceptance to come in the foreseeable future. This upcoming season is going to be depressing as possible for an organization that for so long served as a model to the rest of the league. For years the Rangers were a team built through hard nosed defense, depth scoring and all world goaltending. Now that the hard nosed defense has devolved into a mess, the tripod of excellence has fallen apart.

As for acceptance? That won’t come for anyone until the Rangers make the playoffs again. That’ll be when the rebuild will be proven to be worth it or not. Based on the team’s prospect trajectory, there is reasonable hope that it could return in as few as two seasons.

Goodbye

There is no easy way to let the past go. Every Spring for the entire decade until this past season was filled with hockey. On four different occasions the Rangers were playing hockey well into the month of May in pursuit of the Stanley Cup. The meat grinder that is the NHL postseason shaved years off of lives while the Rangers chased the cup.

The memories are etched in stone: Kreider splitting the defense against Ottawa, Hagelin getting suspended for a clean hit, Hank pitching back to back shutouts against the caps, Marty scoring on Mother’s Day, Marty near side, Dwight King falling on Lundqvist, Zuccarello getting called for being tripped by someone else, Hags knocking out the Pens, coming back from 3-1 against Washington.

In just a matter of 24 months the Ranger’s front office effectively dismantled this core that had been through the battle’s of Springs past. That is what’s so hard about this entire grieving process, the team felt like a stable living organism because of the familiar faces. It seems alien that McDonagh and Girardi both wear Tampa Bay Lightning sweaters now.

Especially during the team’s deep playoff runs, it always felt that someone would come through in a clutch spot. A group doesn’t come back from 3-1 series deficits in consecutive postseasons without having serious determination and character. A lesser team would have wilted to the Pittsburgh Penguins or Washington Capitals. This group simply refused to accept their fate and battled back against more talented teams.

The depression

The ugly part of this process is still to come for the Rangers. This past season was rough because of the expectations going in. However, the team’s defense is even worse on paper than last year’s unit. With No McDonagh to give the defense balance, the team lacks a true number one which throws off the entire depth chart.

The coaching staff is going to have to shoe horn either Brady Skjei or Kevin Shattenkirk into the role, one which neither has ever played before. In addition to that, the team has to hope that Brendan Smith can return to his former level or they’ll be rolling with two overpaid aging left handed defenseman.

This upcoming season will have bright spots, guys like Pavel Buchnevich as well as possibly Filip Chytil and Lias Andersson will have every opportunity to cut their teeth against NHL competition. In addition to the team’s promising crop of young forwards, there is still the Lundqvist factor. The Swede is simply too much of a competitor  to roll over and die this season.

At this point, the Lundqvist era is about the goaltender’s attempt to move up the page in the history book. Depending on how many seasons Lundqvist plays in the future, he could finish as high as third all time in wins for a goaltender.

Saying goodbye to Lundqvist in three seasons is going to be the hardest thing since seeing Brian Leetch wearing a Maple Leafs sweater. For all of his efforts, the team could never get over the hump and capture the ever elusive Stanley Cup. It’s important to not cling to the past, the Rangers are working on something special going forward. A potential line of Viatli Kravtsov, Filip Chytil and Pavel Buchnevich in a few seasons should be enough to hold everyone over during this rough season.